Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this very important subject, which is affecting everybody across this country. I will first declare an interest by saying that I am a landlord. The biggest issue with housing at the moment is supply. If we are going to build more houses, we need to beef up the local authorities because that seems to be the way we are going - local authorities will deliver housing. We need to beef up their resources so they can get on with acquiring the lands locally, developing the projects and getting them built.

The Minister of State is new in the position and I congratulate him on getting it. It is important also he remove some of the approval processes. If a local authority comes up with a scheme, that scheme should be devolved to the local authority to be allowed to get on with it. The Department should let it go from A to Z to tender without having to come back to the Department every time it makes a move, appoints a design team that has to get approval, or applies for the planning permission to get approval to go to the next stage. That is farcical. It was needed at a time when we were trying to slow things down because we had no money. We now need to get on with it. Money is not the problem.

The housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme, as it stands, is not fit for purpose. It is not providing enough money to the tenants given rents are rising. Once somebody goes onto HAP, he or she leaves the housing list, which is not right or fair. Moreover, the landlord is then left in a situation where if the tenant does not pay the money, the landlord will not be paid at all. I have dealt with cases where landlords have been left for years without getting rent because of the farcical way in which evictions can be carried out. I do not agree there should be an eviction ban because it is not landlords who are the problem. The problem is the lack of supply, and we have to get our heads around that and take off the shackles of all these processes if we are to deal with this as an emergency.

We have to accept this situation with housing is every bit as bad as Covid. It is causing mental stress and significant problems throughout the country. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, has been given the task of delivering on the national development plan. If he and the Minister for Finance will agree with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to remove all these gateway approvals for housing, and for health facilities as well, we will go some way towards speeding up the process to get more houses built. Galway County Council is doing a great job and building houses, but it could build a lot more if it had more resources in terms of staff and moneys being devolved to it in order that it could get on with it. A housing scheme that is about to go out to tender for a design team will not see construction start for at least three years. That is no good and it does not work.

It is important we agree that whatever we do, it will be back to supply. We do not need blame games. Too many people are suffering because of what is going on. I do not agree with everything stated in the Labour Party motion but it gives us an opportunity to speak about housing. Likewise, I do not agree with the Government amendment, because I think it is just saying the Government is doing a great job. This is an emergency and a crisis, and while Ukrainian refugees and asylum seekers are coming in at the volume they are, we have an issue with accommodating all the people we have here. We also need to expand Croí Cónaithe.

I will leave it at that because I am out of time.

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