Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Baineann mo cheist leis an ngéarchéim atá ann ó thaobh cúrsaí tithíochta, go náisiúnta agus go háirithe i nGaillimh, agus an ról faoi leith atá ag polasaithe agus beartais tithíochta an Rialtais, atá ag cothú na géarchéime sin.

Today I walked from my privileged accommodation to the Dáil, which is perhaps less 600 m. I counted 16 homeless people living in doorways. Nine of them were outside the Gaiety Theatre; the drama venue was closed inside while the drama continues outside on our streets.

Yesterday the Government had a golden opportunity to do something different. We were talking about Monopoly money of billions of euro, and every respected institution is telling us to spend so we can help with the solidarity in communities by building them. We should finally realise that we cannot talk about an economy without talking about people. Yesterday I listened to the speech of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath. I call him the passive Minister or the Minister of the passive tense. He is the Minister of the soarbhriathar. He spoke about rents and house prices rising without any responsibility or looking at the causes of the homelessness I mentioned or the increasing waiting lists, which are directly related to Government policies.

The Taoiseach might tell me that homelessness is complex but I can pre-empt that by agreeing with him. Some people are on our streets because of complex problems but the vast majority of homelessness and the numbers on housing waiting lists are caused by Government policies.

Yesterday the Government gave the vast bulk of public money to private landlords through the housing assistance payment, HAP, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and long-term leasing. I could name people in Galway who have been waiting for more than 15 years and have never been offered a house. That deserves an inquiry in itself. The housing assistance payment has been the only game in town since 2016. It was enshrined in law by Fine Gael and the Labour Party. It is time for the Taoiseach to do what his Minister called for yesterday when he was not using the saorbhriathar and said we need a radical reappraisal of how we deliver housing.

Can we leave ideology behind for once? We have people on the street and huge numbers of people on waiting lists. I could go into the figures for Galway. Will the Government make a commitment to building public housing on public land as an integral part of the solution?

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