Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Rents in Galway have been far too high for many years and they are only continuing to rise. We see, in Galway city, that the average rent is now over €2,100. In Galway county, it is over €1,500. That is a 70% increase just in the past five years. This is when rent pressure zones were supposed to keep rents at an affordable level but like so many of the previous Government's housing policies, they have absolutely failed in meeting their goal. Now the new Government intends on continuing its failed policies and the Taoiseach is talking about scrapping rent pressure zones, one of the only measly protections renters have.

The reality is we need to ban rent increases completely. The reality is that, for people across Galway city, as rents increase, all it is doing is pushing ever more people into homelessness. That is something that Galway cannot continue to have and cannot take more of. The local authorities are working extremely hard to keep people out of homelessness but they are struggling because of this Government's failed policies.

Emergency accommodation in Galway is full. There is a waiting list. I am dealing with many families who are either couch surfing, living with family or living with friends, and that can be going on for years.

People in Galway can also access homeless HAP supports but these are meaningless because there are no rental properties in Galway that fall under HAP. What are people supposed to do? Last week I had somebody in with me who was trying to get HAP and is in homeless accommodation with two young children, and he needs to be near the hospital for medical purposes. He has to stay beside the hospital. What can he do? He cannot move somewhere extremely far away. Even the HAP place finders find it impossible to find places for people to rent. This is not what you call a functioning housing policy.

Even when a person through some kind of stroke of luck is able to find somewhere suitable to rent with HAP, it is barely enough support to keep the rent paid. Most people are paying a sizable top-up rent to their landlord every month in addition to the HAP contribution. I had one particular case, and I will detail it to the Minister of State here because it is one of those cases that really struck me. I had one woman who had left an abusive relationship and was temporarily staying in a refuge while she was looking for a place to rent. In County Galway, there was nothing affordable but she finally found a place in Mayo. At this point, she was desperate. It was time for her to move on from the refuge. She had seen other women in the refuge end up in emergency accommodation when they were not able to find anywhere to rent. She had also seen women return to the home where they had been suffering abuse because they could not get anywhere else to live. That is horrifying, especially when we have already seen women killed in 2025. She decided to agree to the tenancy in Mayo. Because of current HAP scheme rules, she would get the Mayo HAP rents but pay the Galway differential rate. That is a lower HAP rate and a higher differential payment in this case so she is squeezed in every way. To me, those are institutional barriers that we place in front of women who are trying to get away from abuse. At the time, I wrote to the Minister for housing and he, unfortunately, completely refused to engage on the issue. It is clear to me that we are continuing with these institutional barriers that mean that women cannot get away from domestic abuse and domestic violence. I have seen so much domestic abuse and domestic violence presenting in my office over the past number of months - far more than I have ever seen in the past ten years - and every time that abuse is disclosed to me, it is specifically linked to the housing crisis that they are in and the impact that that has on their ability to leave that domestic abuse situation. This is something that this Government needs to take seriously. We need to make sure that this Government's housing policies do everything possible to support women who need to leave domestic abuse situations.

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