Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Why do we have a huge housing crisis? We are investing a significant amount of money. The housing crisis in Galway is equal to, if not worse than, the crisis in Dublin. Let me outline the facts. People have been on the housing waiting list since 2002. Up until very recently, there were almost 5,000 households on the list, but, mysteriously and magically, that number has been reduced. We do not know how that was achieved, but one of the reasons is that when someone takes a house under the HAP scheme, he or she is taken off the list. The figures the Housing Agency sees for Galway have been reduced because people have accepted a HAP scheme payment and are no longer on the waiting list but a transfer list and so on. Do the witnesses understand my frustration? I am looking at the statistics, yet the housing crisis is getting worse. We have a housing agency that is holding a summit, conferences and spring lectures, but it is not carrying out research into the real causes of the crisis which I see as no social houses having been built in Galway city - I am using Galway as an example - since 2009. In 2018 it started to build 14. There is no escaping the figure. Did the Housing Agency look at the affect of not building a single social house in Galway city until 2018?