Ms Aisling Moran:

I am the chair of Comhdháil Oileáin na hÉireann. I thank the committee for having us here today and for reviewing the SDGs. It is really important for all of us. Housing is one of the biggest issues and I am grateful that it has been raised. The first thing to address with housing is to recognise that we have an issue with housing for islanders, as Ms Rantala said. I appreciate the question that Deputy Ó Cathasaigh asked. If we have affordable housing schemes how do we stop the money going into holiday homes? How do we stop that all over the country? We have looked at this time and again. It is a difficult question. We cannot be the judges or the people to decide that someone cannot sell their house. If that is to be the case, it has to happen at the level of national policy. We need to solve the problem of housing first. That would be my answer. The issue has to be addressed on different levels with social housing, affordable housing, planning and gateway housing, which is a new initiative. We talk about affordable housing, and that is a system we know about, but we do not talk about gateway housing. This might be housing within a community that is supported to let people live within a community for a couple of years and then, if the planning laws are in place, they could build on their own. We have a long way to come with the SDGs around house planning. We can look over those aspects around housing with the SDGs. We have another national housing report by University College Cork, UCC, coming out soon. We also have the national islands policy. I hope that over the next couple of years many more of the SDGs will be hit by implementation of some of the recommendations of those two reports. Financial support is needed for all of this, as is a process of constant review. Perhaps some of my colleagues want to comment on these matters or answer any of the questions that were posed by Deputy Ó Cathasaigh.