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

When one is working at the coalface, one often finds that the Government complicates things that are quite simple. I wish to make a comment on the place finder officer and ask the Minister for his response. According to the city manager, or the chief executive of the city as he is called now, there are not enough houses in Galway to accommodate everybody in the city. That is not to mention the 40,000 the Minister is planning to bring into the city. God knows where we will house them. Regardless of how many place finders are finding places, if there are always more people looking for accommodation than there is accommodation available, the best place finder in the world cannot solve the problem. That is my experience. It is not the fault of the people because the houses and accommodation do not exist.

The people I am talking about today do not have the social problems the Minister mentioned. Most of the people who contact me are families with children whose tenancies came to an end for legitimate reasons and not due to anti-social behaviour. They have good tenancy records but just cannot get housing.

In addition, when one drills into the figures one finds in the mix that people from the Traveller community face major barriers regardless of their history of good behaviour or how decent they are. The vast majority of the people who contact me are fantastic people. They face massive prejudice in society. All types of sociological reports say it exists. It is nearly impossible for them to compete in the open market for rented accommodation.

We have been hearing for years about how many houses will be built. There is no point in buying houses because that is one in and one out of the system and does not provide extra housing, and Galway is short of housing. How many additional social houses were built in Galway city in the past five years and are available as accommodation now?

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