Ballina town councillor Johnny O’Malley has asked for the town council to look into putting an amendment on the new social housing allocation scheme to stop people with antisocial behaviour orders being eligible for housing supplied by the council in the future.
The members were discussing the new Social Housing Allocations Scheme 2011 which directs the council how to allocate housing following a circular issued by the Department of Environment and Local Government. “I think that once someone has an antisocial behaviour order issued against them in a private house they should be told that they will be excluded from getting a house from Ballina Town Council,” Cllr O’Malley told the meeting.
Town clerk Carmel Murphy informed Cllr O’Malley that the council carries out checks with gardaí in relation to this sort of thing and no one with such a past would be offered a house by the council.
Cllr Mary Kelly asked whether this was a rule in the new legislation, which Ms Murphy told her it was not but the council carries out its own checks in this regard. Cllr O’Malley suggested an amendment be made to the legislation. Acting town manager Noel Burke told him that this was a national policy and he did not know could this be done, but he would check it.
Cllr Kelly also raised the issue that a number of people believed that if they were in social housing supplied by other agencies such as Cluid or Respond they were ineligible to apply for council housing. Ms Murphy told her that this was not the case, and anyone could apply to the council for housing and each case would be taken on its merits, and that all applications were taken on a case by case basis. Cllr Kelly welcomed the response from the town clerk and told the meeting this was something that needed to be publicised as people were under the mistaken belief that they would be excluded from the list because they were housed by other agencies.
