Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State paid tribute to the local authorities for their co-operation with other groups on the ground. I join in that tribute. They have shown us the way forward. If we have learned anything, it is that we cannot go back. We must go forward with a completely different vision. Development in Galway has not been sustainable for a very long time.

I know the Minister of State cannot answer questions on housing but it is important that I put the situation in Galway in perspective. I am aware of somebody who will be on a waiting list for 15 years in July and who has never once been offered a house in those 15 years. That really shows the measure of the housing crisis in Galway. A mother with three children will be on the waiting list for ten years in October. She has been in emergency accommodation for two years. She and her children are in student accommodation courtesy of the university for the summer. They will then probably go back to bed and breakfast accommodation. That is the extent of the housing crisis in Galway. That is just a pen picture.

The market in Galway opened last week, which was positive, except that it was closed by the Garda later in the day for failure to comply with social distancing. It seems to me that this good news story was absolutely spoiled by a failure to anticipate what might happen in advance and take proper precautions in a proactive and positive way. I ask the Minister of State to look at the guidelines issued to the local authorities so that they can comply with them, rather than having those guidelines make their life difficult. It is a similar situation with allotments, which should never have been closed. That only happened because of a rigid interpretation of the guidelines from Departments, which was nonsensical.

The vacant site levy has been mentioned by a Sinn Féin colleague. The source of that information is the Parliamentary Budget Office, which I thank for the tremendous work it has done. The Minister of State might read its report. It tells us that the local authorities have repeatedly brought to the Department's attention the difficulties in the administration of the vacant site levy in terms of lack of staff, inconsistency and difficulties interpreting and enforcing the legislation. That issue has been brought repeatedly to the attention of the Minister of State. The most damning thing that stands out in the information provided is that the local authorities have suggested that approximately 18,000 total units could be added to the housing stock if they were able to implement the levy properly.

It is really back in the Department's lap to look at the problems the local authorities have highlighted repeatedly to the Minister of State. I am not in the game of blaming local authorities, which is what he seems to be doing. I spent 17 years in local government and I know the local authorities inside out. Indeed, I have been extremely critical of them, and continue to be so, for their failure to deal with the housing crisis. However, for a long time, there was no funding. At any given time, there are 70 empty properties in Galway. It is an absolute scandal and I am not sure what the Minister of State's Department is doing in that regard.

Finally, I wish to raise the failure by local authorities, particularly Galway County Council on this occasion, to draw down and use moneys. It has meant that vital work on na céanna ar Inis Meáin agus Inis Oírr was not done. The Minister of State's colleague, the Minister of State with responsibility for the Gaeltacht, Senator Kyne, has been extremely critical of the county council in this regard. Again, I am not sure the blame game is the best way to look at this. There needs to be an analysis by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government of what has happened that such vital work, with health and safety implications, was not done. The work needed on the quay on Inis Oírr is minor relative to what is needed on Inis Meáin, but it does require safety railings, by-laws and so on. None of this has happened. Nothing has happened with céim a trí maidir leis an gcé ar Inis Meáin. Where does the interaction between the Department and the local authority come?

I have not left the Minister of State much time to answer but I thought that if I raised the issues, he might reflect on them and come back to me. I have asked, first, about empty houses in Galway; second, about the seriousness of the housing crisis; and, third, about the failure to utilise moneys that are available. In the case of the latter, is that due to a lack of staff? Certainly, all their energy, and all my energy, for quite some time was taken up with preventing the amalgamation and highlighting the lack of resources to both local authorities, particularly the county council.

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