Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this and I thank Sinn Féin for the motion. Although I have great difficulties with the concept in the motion, I welcome the opportunity to speak to it and to focus again on the problem of housing. In Galway city, people are waiting 20 years. I do not need to exaggerate. People are 20 years on a waiting list in Galway city. The last time we built a house there was in 2009. I keep saying this. An otherwise very good article in The Irish Times by Cliff Taylor and Shauna Bowers set out the multitude of schemes for housing. It was excellent and they pointed out that every year, €8.3 billion is going on housing and yet we have 13,866 people homeless including 4,147 children. If €8.3 billion per year is going out then by any stretch we should have our housing problem solved but instead of that, it is getting ever worse. The only issue I had with Cliff Taylor's article was that he said there were no other options because we had to go down the road of housing assistance payments, HAP. We went down the road of HAP in 2013 or 2014 first as a pilot project and then as the only game in town. Therein is the nub of the problem. Houses were not built. No social or public housing was built from the time HAP came in and previously in Galway from 2009 and then onwards with HAP. Between HAP, the rental scheme and the other schemes there is almost €1 billion per year going out on that scheme, not to mention the whole range of other schemes that The Irish Times set out. It was the best layout I have seen. My difficulty with all of this is we made the home into a product a long time ago. The most basic unit of society, that we have shelter, was made into a product to be bought, sold and traded on the market. As a result, now we have an absolute madness.

We have had a task force in Galway since 2019. The chairperson, who seemingly did her best, has now gone on to better things and we have a new chair - both former Secretaries General.

At the meeting in September, the chair said she was underwhelmed at the delivery, after five years of the task force, and she was worried that there was a loss of momentum. In the November meetings of the task force - bear in mind that it has never once produced a final report but has just produced ongoing minutes and ongoing reports - she told us that the chair conveyed her concern and disappointment at the projected figures for social housing for 2023. Regarding affordable housing, five years later, it was reported that Galway city and county councils have no delivery in 2022 or 2023. Galway is the only city with no delivery to date.

There is public land in Galway but because of the multitude of approaches from this Government and previous Governments, we have failed to build public housing on public land full stop - no other variation. Public housing to the highest standard on public land is essential to bring down house prices. Talking about affordable housing in this manner and bringing back landlords in terms of long-term leasing is an effort in desperation because the crisis is so bad. What we want the Minister to do is acknowledge that his schemes have all failed other than keeping house prices artificially high. I am very grateful to the Simon report, which provides constant quarterly snapshots. Remember HAP, which was the only game in town until very recently. No premises are available in Galway under either the discretionary or normal rate of HAP. This is a thriving university city with three hospitals and two universities but there are no properties to rent under the only game in town yet we persist with one scheme and another scheme such as shared equity and help to buy, which is costing a fortune and helping consultants to buy a house. Fair play to them but if a consultant in this country cannot buy a house on the open market, there is something seriously amiss with our housing policy that we have to help people with that kind of salary to buy a house. There is a fundamental class distinction when it comes to the way we deal with public housing. Public housing is good. It brings benefits all around and we should be doing that. In the meantime, we can use some of the other schemes to help us out of the crisis but with a vision and a plan. For the last time, I ask that we get a comprehensive report from the task force in Galway.

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