Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Every quarter, Simon produces a report entitled Locked Out of the Market. We are awaiting the one for this quarter. When it produced the last one, in December, there was not a single housing assistance payment, HAP, property available for anybody in Galway city. We set up a task force in 2019 because of the housing emergency in Galway. It has never reported. We are still waiting on a report. The minutes tell us that last year the former general secretary said she was very disappointed with the poor results to date in 2022 regarding the delivery of social housing.

I take no pleasure in what I am saying. I do not personalise anything but have absolutely no faith in this Government for many reasons. It has just followed on from other governments. With the greatest of respect, I say this of the Labour Party also.

I was elected to the House when we had Rebuilding Ireland. That was based on the same ideology on which the Government is basing its policies, that the market will provide and that, when it does not, it will bolster it in every way. It set out to tell us about the help-to-buy scheme and the position on not scrapping it. Mazars, when it reviewed it, said it should be scrapped and that it was discriminatory, regressive and not fit for purpose. That is correct. I will not waste my time with this sort of idle chitchat.

With regard to policy, I have come in to this House since 2016 and have always asked for public housing on public land. There is no other way. The Land Development Agency has suddenly discovered that there is land at the docks. I have repeatedly asked the Government to consider public housing on public land as an integral part of the solution to the housing crisis.

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