A HOUSING management group to establish a new approach to the administration of local authority housing throughout the State has been announced by the Minister for Housing and Urban Renewal.
Speaking in Cork yesterday, Ms Liz McManus said the work of the group, which would be widely representative, would affect the lives of some 100,000 families living in less well off communities.
Comprising senior officials of her Department as well as local authority officials, the group's mandate would be to develop a programme of best practice by local authorities in managing their accommodation to establish an easily accessible housing advice and information service incorporating the "one stop shop" concept the establishment of an, appropriate programme for training local housing personnel and a monitoring arm for the programme and the identification of key housing performance indicators.
Ms McManus said an essential element of the group's work would be to liaise with residents living in local authority areas and to hear, at first hand through submissions, that their concerns were.
"I place great importance on effective housing, management and, in particular on the need to involve tenants in the running of their estates. Better management is vital if we are to improve the lives of the individual tenants and develop their communities.
"Tenant dissatisfaction, poor maintenance and a lack of any real say for estate residents ink how their estates are run have been a feature of housing estates in this country for decades. I, want to empower local communities so that they themselves will be better able to combat the problems of poverty, unemployment and the growing drugs threat.
"Estate management may be only a part in the process but it is a vital one," Ms McManus said.
The experience in cities such as Cork had shown it was no longer satisfactory to respond to the local authority housing crisis simply by building more houses quickly, she added.
While the provision of housing was important, subsequent management of estates and the creation of an atmosphere of pride in the people who lived in them, were just as important if community confidence was to be restored in less well off areas.
"There's a lot more to the provision of housing than bricks and, mortar. We must restore community pride and give people a real role, in the management of their estates she added. The Housing Management Group will issue its recommendations later this year.