Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ó Broin for bringing forward the motion. One TD said earlier that they could not recall the last time a Minister or Minister of State sat through a full debate. I cannot recall when a member of the Government last came to the House and used Government time to deal with the housing crisis, which would be very helpful in the context of it telling us how it is tackling the housing crisis. I do not know how many times the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, has sat opposite me and I have been saying practically the same thing over and over.

Many reports have been published but I like those of the Simon Community, because the one I have to hand was its 31st snapshot in time that examined a period of three days. I declare an interest in that many years ago, I worked with the organisation as a volunteer. It has produced 31 reports that give us a snapshot of the Minister of State's Government policy. Its latest one tells us there has been "a further decrease in the number of properties available to rent in the private rental market and available through HAP since June 2023." The charity has been tracking this every quarter. It goes on to state:

The report comes in the context of a private rental market affected by a contraction in supply, increase in rental prices, and an overall lack of affordability.

In Galway city, about which I am constantly saying the crisis there is equal to, if not worse than, that in Dublin city, an average of seven properties were available to rent on each of the three days surveyed. The report states:

During the study, no properties were found to be affordable under standard HAP rates. [This is in the Galway city suburbs.]

There was only 1 one-bedroom property available, with rent of €934.

Rents ranged between €1,325 and €2,600 for two-bedroom properties.

That is an obscenity. Does the Minister of State not agree? Rent of €2,600 for a two-bedroom property in the Galway city suburbs is an obscenity. Three-bedroom properties ranged up to €2,200. These are just obscene figures.

Turning to Galway city centre, 13 properties were available to rent. There was one affordable property under the standard HAP rate for any of the four households examined. No properties under the discretionary HAP rate were available. Rents ranged from €1,100 to €1,900 for a one-bedroom property. Can you imagine that? They ranged from €2,040 to €3,000 for a two-bedroom property, and up to €3,000 for a three-bedroom property.

What does the Government say every time we stand up here and use our own time or that of the bigger Opposition party, Sinn Féin, to bring this home to the Government and show how it has commodified the housing market? It has sold it completely to the market and it has utterly failed, so we have brought in scheme after scheme, like a jigsaw with no overall picture for where we are going as a society in terms of ensuring that the most basic unit in a democracy is that we have security of tenure and shelter.

In Galway city, the latest headlines regarding the Land Development Agency suggest it is about to do a deal with the port, Galway Harbour Company, which owns the land in trust for the people of Galway. It is public land, and it is doing a deal with the Land Development Agency. The headline claimed it was going to build “premium” housing on the 6 acres in question. The harbour company, which owns these 6 acres of public land in trust, is doing a deal with the Land Development Agency to keep prices high because that port, if it does eventually get permission, will have to be self-financing. It is going to sell the land at a high value in order that it can build premium housing in a city where people are waiting up to 17, 18 and 19 years to get off the waiting list.

In respect of the absence of a master plan for Galway, I have pointed this out so often I despair. Ceannt Station, with 14 acres in the middle of town, is doing its own thing. The docks, likewise, are doing their own thing, as are Sandford Road and Headford Road. There is no city architect and there is an absence of planners in the city and county. Tomorrow, we are going to talk about planning legislation and blame the objector, labelling the person who is doing his or her best to bring concerns to our attention. We demonise and other them and put them out, and in the meantime, we are back to developer-led development. What is horrible about that is that we have twisted language completely. Up to recently, we were able to say developer-led development. With the planning Bill, we are now being told that that is all changed and it will be public participation while, at the same time, we are utterly reducing public participation. I have stood here and agreed with the Green Party on issues and I will continue to do so, but it is shocking what it is doing with the planning legislation.

The Galway housing task force was set up in 2019 because the system had failed to build houses in Galway since the financial crisis. Not a single public house was built from 2009 to 2020 and we wonder why there is a crisis. We set up a task force and it has not even reported, except for providing one-page reports annually, with no comprehensive report of an analysis of the housing crisis in Galway and solutions to go with it.

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