Council to crack down on neighbours from hell

By TONY GALVIN THE days of local authority tenants wrecking their homes and being provided with new ones are over. This was the stark warning to the tenants of the county's 2,000 local authority houses, issued by Galway Co Council when their new Anti-Social Behaviour Strategy was presented to the authority on Monday at County Hall. Director of Services for Housing Eugene Cummins made it clear that the vast majority of the council's tenants were responsible and respectful towards their neighbours, but the council was no longer going to tolerate situations where a minority made some estates hell for other tenants. Tuam Cllr Tom McHugh called for unruly tenants to be accommodated on council-owned hardstands. Home wrecked twice He said that in one case in the Dunmore area, a family simply wrecked the home provided by the council and then moved on. The council restored the home and it was wrecked a second time by another family. He estimated this one home cost the council over €500,000 and the council still had to re-house those responsible. 'Many, but certainly not all, engaged in this type of behaviour are Travellers, and at a recent meeting of the Traveller Liaison Committee at County Hall, Traveller representatives were fully supportive of taking very severe action against anyone who destroys public property or makes a nuisance of themselves in estates,' Cllr McHugh told The Herald 'Trying to accommodate people like this is simply banging our heads against a wall,' he said, arguing that tenants who showed no respect for the homes provided by the council should be relocated to halting sites. Halting site 'I'm not singling out Travellers, although there's no getting around the fact that there are problems within this community. But if a person can't live peacefully with their neighbours or respect the home he or she is provided with, then the halting site is the best place for them. The local authority may be obliged to provide accommodation but are certainly not obliged to throw good money after bad in the situations we're referring to,' he said. He also argued that there were now up to 15 houses on Gilmartin Road in Tuam in a semi-derelict condition, while former tenants of the area were being provided with homes in private housing estates. This, he argued, was a serious misuse of scarce resources and he called for an end to the situation where the council and the welfare system allowed some tenants to go 'house shopping at taxpayers' expense'. He was supported in his call by his Tuam Area colleague Cllr Sean Canney who said anti-social behaviour could no longer be tolerated from council tenants as those responsible were making life miserable for their neighbours. He said these were the people who suffered the most and they felt the council was not listening to them. Cllr Canney argued that it was all very well for the council to produce a well-meaning protocol, but asked was there a will to back it up with real action. Tell Social Welfare A call was also made for details on troublesome tenants to be forwarded to the Department of Social Protection to ensure those evicted from local authority homes for anti-social behaviour could not simply move into a home on a private estate and continue to make trouble there. The Director of Services for Housing, Eugene Cummins, said in response, that the new anti-social policy document had a strong legal basis and clearly set out a protocol to follow in the case of anti-social behaviour. This document would be of great assistance to the council if they had to go to court to get a troublesome tenant evicted. He assured the members that the council was now in a much stronger position to take action. 'People will realise we're not joking. The days of walking out of a house and simply picking up the phone to look for another are gone. Tenants' histories will now follow them from one jurisdiction to the next. We won't row back from eviction. We're dealing with scarce resources and we can't afford it and are not going to tolerate it any more,' the Director concluded.