Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Where my Department approves additional staff for a local authority, it is then a matter for the Chief Executive, who is responsible under Section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001 for the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authority for which he or she is responsible, to progress the appointments as appropriate.

My Department oversees workforce planning for the local government sector, including the monitoring of local government sector employment levels. To this end, my Department gathers aggregate quarterly data on staff numbers in each local authority on a whole time equivalent basis, which shows that overall staffing levels have increased significantly in the local government sector in recent years. However, granular data, in terms of the number of vacancies in each local authority is not collected and consequently is not available in my Department. This information would be available from Galway City Council and Galway County Council.

In respect of housing, specifically, in September 2021, the Government published its Housing for All strategy, which sets out plans to increase the supply of housing to an average of 33,000 per year over the next decade. Increasing the supply of affordable housing is a central element of Housing for All, with an ambition to deliver over 54,000 new affordable and cost rental homes in the period 2022-2030. As part of the measures to support institutional capacity, Housing for All commits to strengthen the capacity of local authorities to both programme manage and initiate, design, plan, develop and manage housing projects and recognises that this requires the resourcing of the housing services of local authorities.

In September 2022, the Housing Delivery Co-ordination Office undertook a survey of Local Authority resources required to develop affordable housing programmes and associated sales and rental processes. Both Galway County Council and Galway City Council were identified, through the Housing Needs Demand Assessment process, as having an affordability constraint with funding available under the Affordable Housing Fund (AHF) to develop proposals for affordable purchase/cost rental programmes. My Department approved funding for five additional posts in Galway City Council all of which were filled at the end of Q4 2023 and funding for three additional posts in Galway County Council, two of which were filled at the end of Q4 2023.

In terms of social housing delivery, during 2021 the Housing Delivery Co-ordination Office engaged with each local authority to identify their additional staff requirements to deliver social housing. Following this engagement, my Department approved funding for Galway City for six additional posts, all of which were in situ at the end of Q4 2023. Galway County Council were approved for thirteen posts, seven of which were in situ at the end of Q4 2023.