Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Various quotes have been mentioned and I will start with one. Just over a year ago, on 15 October 2019, ago the following observation was made at the housing committee, "I do not support co-living at all, as it is not a solution or even a partial solution, to our housing problem." I have made the point many times that we have to make language mean something if we want to work to restore integrity to politics and want people to believe in us. Nobody ever asked us to be perfect but they asked us to say what we mean so that they know where they stand.

I have looked at the Bill. It is short and to the point. The Minister of State is in the House. As has been said, it is unfortunate that he took the approach that he did. I see the difficulty with the Bill from the Government's point of view, given that it proposes to repeal all of the relevant legislation. However, the Minister of State noted that the regulations were brought in to have nationally consistent high standards. It seems to me that is not what has happened. Broad regulation has allowed low standards to be introduced and has copper-fastened them at very high prices. Language is again being stood on its head.

Previous Governments commodified homes and the current Government has inherited this situation. The challenge now is for the Government to do something different because that is why it is in office. I and other Opposition Deputies were elected because we said we would do things differently and make our word mean something. It is time to stop commodifying homes. They are not a commodity.

We cannot take part in society if we do not have security of tenure. I do not agree with Deputy Naughten on security of tenure being ten or 15 years. People need a home for life. We need the Government to be in the middle of the market, i lár an aonaigh. We need to send a message out that a home is essential. It is the most basic thing we need before we can live a civilised life. The State needs to be in the middle of that and build public housing on public land. It is as simple as that. The Government has to grasp the nettle and we will support that. That is what we have to do, regardless of whether the Government likes it. We need public housing on public land.

I refer to Galway and the locked out of the market study. The Simon Community has done us a great service for a long time in making a pen picture of the market at a given time. On 20 August, it found that in three areas there were no properties available to rent in any category within the standard of the discretionary rent supplement and the housing assistance payment. Those areas were Galway city, Limerick city and Portlaoise. In my city, people inexplicably have been on social housing waiting lists for over 15 years and have never been offered a house. I have no idea how that could happen when land is available.

The report published by Daft confirmed that Galway has bucked all the trends and in three months, rent has increased by 10%, which is 3% per month, a figure which is out of sync with all of Connacht and Ulster. We have a housing crisis. The Government should declare that and let the solutions emerge. One of them is public housing on public land.

Galway city is developer-led. I ask the Minister of State to have a look at it. The Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, agreed with me twice on the record. We have public land and developer-led developments.

Ceannt Station is a development on public land being led by a developer. The docks is doing its own thing. Sandy Road and the university are doing something else. It is all separate. In one sense, I say fair play to those involved because the obligation is on the city council and Government to work in the common good and have a master plan. There is no master plan. It is enshrined in the city development plan that it will be facilitated, but they cannot afford to produce one. They cannot afford not to produce one because we will have an unsustainable city.

It upsets me to see the term "sustainable" in planning guidelines that allow for a co-living with a bedroom of 12 sq. m. That is not sustainable and it makes a mockery of the English language.

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