Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will also thank Sinn Féin for the motion. I welcome the opportunity to speak on it. I agree with almost all of it. I welcome that Sinn Féin wants to bring forward measures to effectively ban investment funds and many of the other things set out in the motion but I have great concerns about the use of emergency planning and procurement powers so I will reserve my position on that.

In contrast with the Rural Independent Group, I have not come across anybody who has made an objection or complaint. What people make are submissions expressing their concerns. The planning legislation provides for that and it is vitally important. Indeed, the courts have repeatedly said that the role of the individual outside of the two parties is extremely important for our democracy and have praised the role that individuals have played. I hate going back but, when I was elected in 1999, my biggest difficulty was with the underfunding and under-resourcing of the planning authorities, which remains an issue to this day. I understand there are hundreds of vacancies.

A second issue is the continuous reduction of the involvement of the public. Because of repeated myths such as the suggestion that people are objecting for no reason, we brought in legislation to preclude people who did not make a submission at local authority level from doing so at the level of An Bord Pleanála. Then we brought in fees to further discourage people from taking part in the planning process. Throughout all this time, my experience was that the difficulty was interference with planning law by various means by big developers and by planning permission being given with certain conditions and those conditions never being complied with. We saw that when the planning tribunal reported. Does the Minister of State remember that? We are inclined to forget the planning tribunal that cost a fortune and set out the systemic misuse of the planning laws from top to bottom. I cannot remember the words it used. The Minister of State might help me. I am getting tired in the evening. However, it spoke about the abuse of the planning laws on a systemic basis and money repeatedly changing hands.

From 1999 to now, I have had the privilege of being a city councillor and a TD. As with health, I have watched the failure to invest in local authorities and the continuous removal of power from them, whether by leaving vacancies or by not giving enough money and then blaming them. I am a critic of local authorities but never of their staff. I certainly criticise some of the management but, most important, I criticise the Government policies that have seen them starved of funds and a role. They now spend their time privatising and outsourcing. I could count on one hand the number of people directly employed as plasterers, carpenters, electricians and so on. Everything has been privatised.

I have watched a housing crisis deliberately being allowed to come into being, following Government policy. Back when I was a proud member of the Labour Party, one of the first speeches I made was at a Labour Party conference on the unaffordability of housing. I remember pointing to headlines in The Irish Times at the time on the cost of housing. Does the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, remember the Kenny report? It was published more than half a century ago - 51 years ago. It told us there was a huge problem at the time and we needed to give local authorities power to acquire land at existing use value with a 25% bonus for the owners. It clearly pointed out that we needed to do something 51 years ago.

If we fast forward to 1999, when I was elected, there was a housing crisis. Houses were built every year and the progress was outlined in a quarterly report that told us where and how we were building and when construction would be completed. Then in 2009 we moved to the last column, "construction suspended", never to build a house again. I am not given to exaggeration. As the facts are so damning, I do not need to exaggerate. Not a single public house was built from 2009 until 2020 or 2021. That is a significant part of the problem.

I have been a Member of this House since 2016 and have grabbed every moment, whether through Sinn Féin motions, our own motions or at any other opportunity, to highlight that there is an alternative vision for this country in the context of housing. The current situation has been deliberately created through reliance on the market. The market has repeatedly failed and each Government. It is extraordinary that the three Government parties continue with this reliance in light of the damning figures.

The figures trip off our tongues as though they do not mean anything. There are 13,514 people in homeless accommodation, of whom 4,105 are children. Various experts have pointed out that is an underestimate. The Government does not tell us this in so many words, but my interpretation is that those people are just collateral damage. The Government tells us the housing policy is brilliant even though the numbers in emergency accommodation keep rising and there are appalling figures for deaths on our streets. I walk past people on the street every night as I go to my hotel. I wonder what is happening to me as I look at the recesses at the front of the Gaiety Theatre, which have become a bedroom for somebody. I ask what has happened to me and this country. At one stage, we were outraged that there were people sleeping on the ground. I watch as the seagulls come over and take the little brown bag that sits beside the person. I watch various voluntary groups give out money and blankets and I say I am part of this Dáil that is allowing this to happen. This is an obscenity.

I am so tired of the Government's spin. I want to work with it because I think there is a solution. An integral part of the solution is to face the facts. The Simon Community tells us the position as is through its 32nd snapshot of 16 areas. The study examined the availability of property in 16 areas. In nine of those areas, there was no property available under the main Government scheme, namely, HAP. Galway city was among the nine areas, while there was one property available in Galway county. That is the position. This is its 32nd snapshot. Surely any Minister worth their salt would say, "Jesus, we are doing something wrong here. How is that happening when our main scheme is HAP?"

I will look first at Galway city and then move to the county. The famous Galway social housing task force, which I have mentioned often, has been sitting for more than five years but we still have not got a single comprehensive report from it analysing the situation in Galway. It gets more presentations from homeless groups on the ground to tell us the situation is getting worse. Part of the solution for Galway city and county is to build public housing on public land. I am not looking for affordable housing or other housing. There is a need to build public housing on public land and extend the income limits in order that there is a diverse range of people there. The Government should stop the negotiation that is going on in respect of the docklands, which will give land to the Land Development Agency at a premium price for premium housing. Does the Minister of State think selling off land to fund an extension into the sea that cannot go ahead if one takes storms realistically and believes what is happening in the context of climate change is a solution to an emergency in Galway? As regards Ceannt Station, approximately 14 acres in the centre of Galway are being developed by that body without any connection with the other bodies.

As regards the county, is cathair dhátheangach í ar thairseach na Gaeltachta is mó sa tír. Maidir leis an gCeathrú Rua agus an córas séarachais; níl aon chóras ann agus tá an séarachas amh, the raw sewage, ag dul díreach isteach san uisce. Ní féidir aon rud a thógáil ansin mar níl an córas cuí don aidhm. In Carraroe, there has been no treatment facility for 20-something years. We tabled questions on the matter but were told it is nothing to do with the Minister but, rather, it is to do with Irish Water. A most unsuitable site was picked, with all the eggs in one basket, if you will excuse the bad pun. I could call what is in the basket something other than eggs. In terms of delivery, there has been nothing.

We could have balanced regional development, as well as balanced county and city development, but it is simply not happening. We have any amount of schemes with no vision. There is no vision because there is no acknowledgement that we cannot have a Republic based on the market. The market has a role but, for a democracy and a Republic, we need homes. They are the most basic and fundamental segment of society that will give security and allow people to participate. Instead of that, we have a jigsaw without a picture, as well as boasting about a first-time buyers' scheme that is simply keeping the price of houses too high. The Government says that my colleagues and I do not want people to own their own homes. I do want people to own their own homes, but at an affordable price. I do not want them to have to work every God-given hour to get a mortgage they cannot even afford in the first place.

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