The Government was spending €160 million annually trying to put right the building mistakes on housing estates built in the 1960s and 70s, the Minister of State for the Environment told the Dáil.
Mr Noel Ahern said that for the past 10 years the Government had been building good-quality estates. However, decades ago the huge estates built were probably good for the minister of the day but had bad architectural design and poor facilities.
"That was a time when there was not the same money in the country as there is now. We are now spending a fortune on remedial work and regeneration schemes."
Mr Ahern was replying to Mr Pádraig McCormack (FG, Galway West) who referred to the anxiety caused in many housing estates, particularly among elderly people, by those involved in anti-social behaviour.
Mr McCormack said this could be remedied by the provision of the necessary recreational facilities in estates, particularly local authority estates, before the houses were occupied.
Mr Ahern said he understood people's anxiety, which he had also observed in his own constituency. "Local authorities have the power to seek exclusion orders, and we have extended that power. We often heard from local authority officials in my own area, particularly since 1997, that certain families were tenant purchasers and they cannot touch them. Since the Residential Tenancies Act came into force, however, they have the power to move on tenant purchasers as well, although not the owner because of the constitutional problems, but children or the adult siblings in the house."
Mr Ahern said that under the young people's facilities and services fund, the Government was putting money into facilities because they had not been provided 30 years ago.
"I hope we have learned our lesson in that regard because the quality of design of housing built in recent years is far better."
