Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I begin by informing the House that I am a landlord and have an interest in this subject.

The problem facing us at the moment is the supply of houses. The local authorities have been commissioned to deliver social housing and we now see them being commissioned to deliver affordable houses and other types of homes. That will help people. I acknowledge Galway County Council's efforts in recent years to build social housing estates. I welcome that social housing is again being built as part of Government policy rather than leaving it to the private sector. The houses being built are of fantastic quality and a credit to everybody involved.

The real issue, which is homelessness and people without places to stay, comes down to one particular factor, namely, the supply of houses. How can the Government help with supply? The one area in which we are totally dysfunctional is that of private housing supply. Some private accommodation is being built but most of it is in the form of apartment blocks built by investment companies as opposed to housing built by developers to sell to individuals. It is striking that only two private housing estates are being built in Galway county at the moment. That is an indictment of where we are at and of the Government's policies. If we do not increase that supply very rapidly, we will be in worse trouble.

I acknowledge the Croí Cónaithe scheme, which we in the Regional Group looked to have enhanced. It was enhanced and it is now functioning. However, the local authorities need more resources to ensure all the processes are done more speedily to ensure the work is completed and people are occupying houses more quickly. The emergency situation we are facing needs to be dealt with by emergency measures by the local authorities, supported by the Government.

Another area where we have problems is in planning. There are a lot of planning refusals for one reason or another. We also have problems with the zoning of lands. There is an incredible situation where forward planners will say it is more important to have a footpath to connect housing to the town centre than it is to have sewerage facilities. I have seen that in local plans, with lands not being prioritised on the basis that there is no footpath to link them to the town. We can build footpaths and all of that. We need a commonsense approach.

Given the emergency we are facing and the fact the private sector is dysfunctional in its delivery of houses, will the Government set up an emergency task force to see what are the blockages? How do we get developers to start building houses on land they own rather than the Government imposing a land tax on zoned land on which housing is not being built? We need to wake up to the fact this is an emergency and that if we do not do something now, we will find ourselves in a worse state. Anger is beginning to build up in regard to all of this. People are comparing how refugees and asylum seekers are being treated with how our own people in this country are being treated. That is under the surface and it is beginning to bubble up. There is only one solution to all of this, which is to provide a policy for private sector development and instruments by which affordable houses can be built at the speed at which they are required over the next number of years. I fail to see that being done. Instead, we see strategies, plans and agencies being set up. The important thing is to see the houses being built. We need to cut out a lot of the red tape and get on with it.

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