Anti-social behaviour laws promised

The Government has pledged to bring in new legislation to tackle anti-social behaviour in local authority housing estates.

The Government has pledged to bring in new legislation to tackle anti-social behaviour in local authority housing estates.

Minister for Housing Batt O'Keeffe said today that stronger powers and more resources will be key to ensuring that local authorities can respond "not only to the symptoms but also to the causes of such behaviour".

"Anti-social behaviour disrupts the lives of householders and has the potential to destabilise communities," Mr O'Keeffe said.

"Local authorities, as landlords of some 110,000 dwellings, have a duty to secure and protect the interests of their tenants as far as reasonably possible, by abating or preventing anti-social behaviour in their estates."

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Mr O'Keeffe said he would introduce strong legislation "as quickly as possible".

The new laws will, amongst other measures, improve links between local authorities, housing bodies and the Garda in dealing with individuals behaving in an anti-social manner in social housing estates.

They will also create a broader definition of what constitutes anti-social behaviour, in line with the definition in the recent Criminal Justice Act, Mr O'Keeffe said.

The Minister said he would finance projects worth at least €8 million throughout the State over the next three years under the new proposals. He would consider individual proposals to tackle anti-social behaviour under a scheme currently being finalised.

Mr O'Keeffe said he will also make more than €1 million available to local authorities later this year under the Housing Management Initiative, to help deliver better housing services to local authority tenants.