Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I listened to the Taoiseach tell us this morning that the local authorities had not measured up. He repeated this later using different phraseology. Let me say Galway City Council has measured up. It produced a housing report every quarter of every year in which it set out its strategy and identified the land it had zoned for residential purposes. The accompanying note stated construction had been suspended and that there was no funding available. That was the position in Galway where I had been since 1999 and left earlier this year. Not a single social house has been constructed since 2009. There is a housing crisis in Galway because we did not use public land to provide homes with public funds. I am sickened to the core when I hear Labour Party Members justify this by saying because of the state of the economy we could not afford to build homes. There is something seriously wrong with our definition of what an economy is if we cannot afford to give people homes and there is something definitely wrong with an economic strategy that does not allow people security with all of the positive benefits it brings.

I welcome some of the measures included in the report such as the strategy for urban and village renewal. There are 84 recommendations made. I agree fully with Deputies Richard Boyd Barrett and Ruth Coppinger that there has been a complete failure to address the fact that a state must provide homes on public lands. The facts are outlined on page 45 of the report. The Minister intends to build up to 5,000 houses by 2021. He cannot possibly provide homes with this strategy at the rate at which the waiting lists are increasing. What is worse is that he is going to rely on the very market forces that, through repeated Government policy, caused the crisis in the first place.

I hope the Minister will conclude tonight by acknowledging that there is a national emergency, not because the economy failed but because we failed to use it to provide homes for people. Each Deputy has an anecdote. I can say I made representations today on behalf of a family who has been on the waiting list in Galway since 2002. they are number one on the list. Galway City Council has responded by stating it is not in a position to tell the family when they will have a house. Sticking with the position in Galway but making a general point, Dr. Pádraic Kenna of NUI Galway has concluded a piece of Europe research that continued for over two years. While I hear Deputies ask for a moratorium on house repossessions, with which I agree, Dr. Kenna points to the significant finding of the research that evictions result from increased rents and that such evictions are greater in number than those arising from a failure to pay a mortgage. The document fails utterly to give security in the rental sector, while its thrust is we have to rely on it. I am appalled that the Minister thinks we should give public land bought at the highest prices to private companies on which to build to provide social housing rather than the other way round. The Kenny report has been quoted by the Deputy from the Labour Party. Successive Governments have refused to act on it. We have refused to recognise the long-term gain in providing homes for people would spur the economy and lead to a much healthier society and wealthier country.

We are going to give more money to approved housing bodies, which are unregulated. In the past few weeks we have come into the Chamber to talk about the unregulated charities sector. We have approved housing bodies that are operating in an unregulated market.

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