Councillor Eamon Quinlan has called on the Council to remove anti-social tenants from Council housing, by having them identify themselves to the Council if they receive over a six month sentence for a serious charge.
Speaking at the April Plenary meeting, Cllr. Quinlan said: “In relation to anti-social behaviour and the use of our properties for the distribution of drugs, I and other Councillors were at a Residents Association meeting lately where the issue being brought to us again and again that communities were being victimised by people who were taking and distributing drugs from our properties”.
“We have it in our contracts which they sign, that anti-social behaviour is banned, but also, as other councillors here know, we have a requirement when circumstances change, if they earn an extra €5, €10, €1,000, they have to notify us.”
“The time has come that we have to put it in there that if someone is criminally convicted of an indictable or summary charge that they would notify Waterford City and County if they receive a conviction so that if they are put away for six months we can retake the house,” he said.
“Also for people who are facing domestic violence, so we can we remove the violent person from the tenancy to protect, children, protect families and so on.”
Exclusion Orders
Director of Service for Housing Seamus de Faoite was not overly receptive. “The reality of the matter is that anti-social behaviour is a tricky subject. We get so many complaints in relation to this matter, but an important thing I learned many years ago is that there are two sides to every story,” he said.
“Working with the Garda Síochána is very important. Working with the Community Safety Partnership is very important.
“In relation to exclusions orders, we have gone down that road, I actually signed two orders yesterday. But the important thing to recognise is that I signed two orders for us to go to the court. Ultimately at the end of the day the only person that can give us an exclusion order is the court,” Mr. de Faoite said.
“From our perspective, once we have the evidence we will work through a process.”
Speaking after the meeting Cllr Quinlan pushed back against this answer, saying: “There are two sides to every story. In Criminal cases, there is the Director of Public Prosecutions or Gardai acting on their behalf and the other is from the defendant”.
“It is only after a Judge and / or jury of one’s peers has listened to both and found that the level of evidence was beyond a reasonable doubt, that a criminal conviction was warranted, that this new policy would kick in,” Cllr. Quinlan said.
“The Council has a duty to act here. This way we know if someone is going to be incarcerated for longer than six months, as we cannot justify having empty houses during a housing crisis, when there is law abiding, innocent people waiting on homes,” he continued.
“We also need to protect victims who share a house with people with convictions for such violence. The Council cannot continue to keep its head in the sand to this level of ongoing criminality across communities,” Cllr. Quinlan added.
AARON KENT
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
