Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Rebuilding Ireland has not worked. Housing For All has not worked. They are part of the problem. I spent 17 years at local authority level. We stopped building houses in 2009. It is on the record. Construction was suspended. We introduced HAP on a pilot basis and put it on a statutory footing in 2004. People were housed if they got a HAP property. Now there are no houses available at the HAP discretionary rates or ordinary rates. We have the insulting thing - I do not mean the person but the position - of a HAP finding officer. There is no HAP to be found. Will the Minister please read the Simon Communities reports, which it produces quarterly? I read from one to the Minister earlier. They are very easy to read. They are very succinct and give the key findings. There are no HAP properties in Galway. Homeless services are at capacity. There is nowhere for anyone to go. Earlier, I read out the details of a case of a young man with a six-month-old child in a hotel. To a certain extent he is lucky he is in a hotel. That is the homeless situation in Galway because of the policies. We have a task force which is not fit for purpose.

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