Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In my time in politics, I have never seen such a crisis in housing as I have seen in recent times. We were told five years ago there were too many houses around the country, and there were areas where this was correct, such as areas of low population. However, in the overall scheme of things, the number of empty houses in the country against the total demand for housing is quite modest. I could put down a question to the Minister and he would be able to tell me how many vacant houses are left in the so-called ghost estates. However, there is a crisis.

The reality is simple. The Galway city manager told us recently that in the last four years, we have built 252 houses in Galway, private and public, when the requirement per year is 350 houses. One can figure out for oneself just what the deficit is. Schemes of buying houses, laudable as they are, do not add to a housing stock that is inadequate for the number of people looking for houses. This has created an even bigger problem because, as a result, it is a seller's market and rents now far exceed the rent caps set by the Minister for Social Protection. The reality is that people cannot rent within the rent caps set by her. This is a kind of "no give" situation because I accept that if the rents are put up, they are put up for everybody. However, if we do not deal with the price people have to pay in the market, they will literally be homeless as a result of not being able to find the rent. More and more, there is a new version of "No Irish needed here"; it is called "Professionals only" when people are renting property.

I want to deal with another issue which is totally within the Minister's power, namely, Traveller housing. Seven years ago, Galway City Council got a temporary planning permission for a halting site at a place called Carrowbrowne. The halting site existed and the Travellers were moved in. Since that planning permission ran out, Galway City Council, which is itself the planning authority, has been acting illegally by having a halting site without planning permission. It is an interesting situation where both the Travellers and the local community have had to go to An Bord Pleanála to oppose the city council together in trying to make that a permanent site, even though everybody knows it would be totally unsuitable.

We are likely, in the near future, to wind up with a further illegality, with An Bord Pleanála turning down the final application on this site. In the meantime, year after year, the Department has sat back and allowed money to be returned to the Exchequer. The total expenditure on Traveller housing in Galway this year was on two refurbishments, at a cost of €65,000.

Does the Minister have a role to ensure that local authorities act within the law? Does he think the current situation, as we saw it in Carrickmines, is good enough? Does he now accept that the Traveller community is right that what is now needed is a national agency that will be responsible for Traveller housing? Bad and all as accommodation issues are for the settled community, they are far worse for the Traveller community as a result of the clearly demonstrated prejudices of society. As I said, this matter is totally in the remit of the Minister and his Department. I suggest that what he should do before he leaves office is to state clearly that while some local authorities have been maith go leor, generally across the system they have failed to deal in a fair and humane way with the Traveller housing issue. He should state that he supports the setting up of a Traveller housing agency, the majority of whose board would be Travellers, to provide suitable accommodation for Travellers throughout this State. A measure of our standing as a society is how we treat the most vulnerable. I hope the Minister will leave this as his legacy.

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