Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend People Before Profit-Solidarity on bringing forward the motion. I have a couple of points I wish to raise in my limited time. At the start of this week, a survey conducted by Galway Chamber showed the real-life impact we all knew was happening, but it was good to get a detailed survey that showed the impact the housing crisis in Galway city is having across the board, including on employment. People should be able to access good employment, but the fact they are unable to access good-quality or, indeed, any kind of housing is also impacting on their ability to access employment. Four of five businesses indicated housing was hindering their ability to hire. The equivalent figure in the tech sector was nine of ten, while 70% of businesses said the crisis was impacting on their staffing retention. We can see this, given that if people end up being evicted thanks to the Government's decision to end the eviction ban, they will have nowhere to go and will have to leave their jobs because they cannot commute, not least because of the lack of public transport.

This is my third time raising the next issue, including twice with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. It needs to be addressed as well as soon as possible, so I ask the Minister of State to reiterate it to the Minister. The latter needs to issue a circular to the councils to say that if a tenant receiving HAP from one council lives in another council area, that council can nonetheless use the tenant in situ scheme. At the moment, that is not being done. A circular to that effect needs to issue as soon as possible.

My colleague Louis O'Hara has been actively campaigning in recent months in regard to an issue related to Cashla, Athenry. Twelve households who received notices to quit in late 2021 are being evicted between February and May of this year. Those tenants feel a great sense of frustration and injustice about what has happened to them. Again, because of the cruel decision by the Government to lift the eviction ban, they are going to be thrown out and God knows where they are going to go. They do not know where they are going to go, so unless the Minister of State can tell us, who knows?

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