Tenants in local authority housing fail to report antisocial behaviour ‘out of fear’

Residents in local authority housing are afraid to report their neighbours’ antisocial behaviour for fear of reprisals, members of the largest council in the country have claimed.

Cork Co Council moved to assure council house tenants the identity of all complainants who make submissions to the local authority will be kept confidential. The matter arose during yesterday’s meeting of the council, during which a draft copy of its antisocial behaviour strategy was circulated to members. Fine Gael councillor Deirdre Forde said the complaints she receives are split evenly from local authority and private housing estates.

“A lot of people are still afraid to make a complaint because often they have to live next door to the people they are complaining about,” she said. Cllr Forde recalled an incident where she made a complaint on behalf of a member of the public who was afraid to make a submission themselves, only for the subject of the complaint to contact Cllr Forde to ask why she had reported them to the council.

“I have no problem with them phoning me, because its not easy to intimidate me, but I can imagine some of these people living with unruly behaviour on a daily basis could be very afraid of insidious behaviour, be it physical threats or psychological,” she said.

Eugene O’Callaghan of the Council’s estate management unit told the meeting under the provisions of the Housing Provisions Act 2014, the identity of complainants is protected “up to and including the courts”.

“There are three of us in the estate management unit and we all know the law. We will not disclose any complainant’s name,” he said.

He added names would only be revealed in obvious cases, such as incidents where the complaint centres on an assault allegation. Cases brought to court would see the name of the complainant divulged to the judge handling the case only.

Cllr Derry Canty (FG) questioned whether the council has adequate resources to manage the number of complaints.

“People are afraid to come forward. They’re afraid they will be intimidated after, or that their children will be intimidated in relation to complaints,” he said.