Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Arís, baineann mo cheist le cúrsaí tithíochta agus leis an ngéarchéim tithíochta. Tá an t-ábhar seo ardaithe go mion minic agam ag an leibhéal seo, i gceisteanna don Taoiseach agus i ngach díospóireacht sa Dáil. Arís inniu, tá an cheist á ardú agam maidir leis an ngéarchéim tithíochta go náisiúnta agus go háirid i nGaillimh, áit a bhfuil daoine ag fanacht níos mó ná 15 bliain le teach a fháil.

I raise the housing emergency once again. Like other Deputies on the left, I have raised it continuously any chance I get. I have participated in every debate on housing to bring to the Taoiseach's attention what is happening. I will attempt to do that in the next two minutes. I ask the Taoiseach not to come back and tell me, as he told the leader of Sinn Féin, about rhetoric and bluster. I am allergic to it. I want an acknowledgement that the support of the previous Government and, going back further, Fianna Fáil-led governments, has led to the housing crisis. If the Taoiseach has had a moment on the road to Damascus, I welcome that. If he now says we need public housing on public land as an integral part of the solution to the housing emergency, I welcome that.

The Simon Communities of Ireland Locked Out report for April 2021, 18th study, provides a three-day snapshot. Of the areas studied, six had no properties available. Galway city had two within the limits of the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme. The Government's policy, and that of the previous Government, is predominantly HAP. Galway has a major housing crisis. People are waiting 15 years. A task force was set up in April 2019 and, notwithstanding good updates on Galway, it has not produced a single comprehensive report to say what the problem is and what is needed. We have any amount of land in Galway up to 2023, when it will run out. In the meantime, all those parcels of land are being developed by developers. We have the docks, maximising the value of the land there.

There is 17 acres that they are going to sell off to the highest bidder or to the Land Development Agency. We have Ceannt Station, with valuable land in the middle being developed by a developer. We have the Dyke Road. We have land at the airport. We have land at Nuns' Island. They are all being developed without a master plan. Can one imagine that? Each developer is developing its own site with a little tiny bit of social housing or affordable housing but no master plan or recognition of the emergency. There is so much that I could say but I will stick rigidly to my time. I am telling the Taoiseach that there is a housing emergency in Galway. I am telling him that the market-based approach is not working. We need a commitment to public housing on public land as an essential ingredient in a solution.

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