‘No reward’ for Louth council tenants engaging in anti-social behaviour

By Olivia Ryan, The Drogheda Independent

There must be "no reward” for Louth’s social housing tenants who engage in anti-social behaviour, a meeting of Dundalk councillors heard .

Cllr. Sean Kelly told the December meeting of Dundalk Municipal District: “We are all aware of an increase in anti-social behaviour amongst some of our social housing tenants.”

He asked that this is “looked at as a matter of priority” when a new Anti-Social behaviour policy is being drawn up.

"It is an issue that all 29 Louth councillors are facing on an almost daily basis,” said Cllr. Kelly.

Cllr. Maeve Yore added: “Successive governments have failed to deal with anti-social behaviour. Taxpayers are really fed up and frustrated with the lack of leadership on it.”

She said a “clear message needs to go out from Louth County Council that anti-social behaviour will not be tolerated, and that we are updating our anti-social behaviour policy in our tenants handbook.”

"People are fed up. Good, decent and honourable council tenants are fed up of anti-social behaviour beside them and around them, and we need action on it nationally.”

Cllr. Ciaran Fisher agreed, saying: “We do have a problem with it. We have a very long social housing waiting list, and some people are a bit aghast and shocked at the behaviour within certain council houses.”

He added: “These behaviours are allowed to continue as they remain within a council house. We really need to tackle this.”

Cllr. Fisher said there was a “grey area” where tenants are receiving Housing Assistance Payments (HAP).

"I know we have been over and back on this over who is responsible for policing it. It seems to fall on the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB).”

"We do need to think of the optics here, when you have a client who is in a house, receiving a payment through the council, there is a perception the anti-social behaviour is not being addressed in any way.”

"There needs to be a strong message out there that those people are not going to be top of the list to receive a council house if they are engaging in anti-social behaviour and receiving a HAP payment,” said Cllr. Fisher.

He added: “There has to be a mechanism where that behaviour can’t be rewarded.”

Cllr. Fisher said he welcomed confirmation from the council that a new Anti Social behaviour Policy is currently being worked on, but asked that issues with HAP tenants are considered as part of this strategy.

Cllr. Kevin Meenan, who sits on the Strategic Policy Committee (SPC) set to deal with the new strategy, told councillors there is “a huge amount of work attached to this, as it is going to be such an important document, because many people are affected by anti-social behaviour in council houses, and social houses as well.”

Declan Grimes, Senior Engineer (Housing) at Louth County Council, told the meeting that the work on the strategy will take time, and there will be a significant amount of engagement with councillors in order to get it approved.

He added that HAP tenants are in a tenancy agreement with their landlord. They are considered private tenancy arrangements, although they have to register through the RTB, and they are in receipt of social housing support.

“We have nearly 5,000 units at this stage, and we have a good few issues with anti-social behaviour from time to time, which our estate management team try to deal with as best as possible through tenancy warnings and the court system.”

He added that garda checks are carried out on all tenants allocated social houses, and through this mechanism they are able to identify issues with tenants, or people who have caused issues in a particular area.”