Galway City Council and Garda Chief asked to target unruly tenants

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – The Mayor has written to senior Council officials and the Gardaí this week in a bid to put in place new measures to curtail anti-social behaviour at a number of estates across the city.

Earlier this week, the six Galway City East councillors met to plan a co-ordinated approach in the tackling of a problem, described in some estates as ‘being totally out of control’.

Fianna Fáil councillor Alan Cheevers told the Galway City Tribune that a small minority of local authority tenants were ‘making life hell’ for the many decent and hard-working residents who were living beside them.

“We urgently need a real tightening-up of the Garda vetting procedure for people seeking houses and we need a far stricter enforcement of the tenancy agreements by the City Council,” said Cllr Cheevers.

He said that there was one new estate – constructed and finished to an absolutely top-class standard – where the behaviour of people in two of the houses was making life hell for their neighbours.

Cllr Cheevers said that he and the other five Galway City East councillors – Michael Crowe, Owen Hanley, Noel Larkin, Declan McDonnell and Terry O’Flaherty – had met with Mayor Mike Cubbard.

He said that as result of that meeting, the Mayor was now furnishing a letter to the City Council Chief Executive, Brendan McGrath; the Garda Chief Superintendent, Tom Curley and to senior officials in the Council’s Housing Section, outlining the scale of the anti-social behaviour in some estates.

“What many people mightn’t realise is that there are many, many decent hard-working tenants paying rents of between €500 and €800 a month for their houses, who take great pride in their homes and in the areas that they live. It’s just not fair that one or two families can destroy everything for them,” said Cllr Cheevers.

Cllr Noel Larkin told the Galway City Tribune that in some estates the problems with anti-social behaviour had gotten out of control, with the Council’s ‘hands tied’ in terms of what they could do in dealing with problem tenants.

“We have cases of horse trailers being chained to road gulleys; car

Chief Superintendent Tom Curley said that while he couldn’t comment on housing issues in the city, the Gardaí would investigate any complaints made to them as regards criminal or anti-social activity.

City Council Housing Director of Services, Dermot Mahon, said that while various nuisance or disturbance issues would arise in estates, the vast majority of those were dealt with successfully through conversation, correspondence, mediation or in talks with local residents’ groups.
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