John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Like those in every other portfolio and in every other role, I wish the Minister well. I wish every Minister who has some part to play in resolving this issue well. It is our greatest challenge. We have had a number of debates in recent times on the health service and mental health service, and there are significant challenges in all those areas. However, resolving the housing issue will be particularly challenging but it will also have a knock-on effect in improving health outcomes. It is not unjust or unfair to say that.

I do not dispute that there is a challenge across the country but Galway is suffering disproportionately in this challenge. At the moment, if people are on the Galway City Council waiting list for a two-bedroom home, their wait will be in excess of a decade. If they get a house within a decade, they will be doing well. For those who may be waiting for a four-bedroom, the council does not have four-bedroom properties at the moment. Waiting times in that regard will be exacerbated.

Another trend I recognise that shows Galway is suffering disproportionately is in the monthly homelessness figures. Galway consistently has the highest number of children in emergency services outside Dublin. The description given in the figures is "the west" but when delving into them, it can be seen that of the three counties in that area, Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, Galway has a significantly higher number of children who must reside in emergency accommodation on a nightly basis. The population of Galway is smaller than some other urban areas but we have this unfortunate and unique position. The situation is without doubt similar to that in other parts of the country but it is exacerbated in Galway.

The most recent monthly figures recorded 227 children in emergency accommodation in Galway. The impact of that goes well beyond the impact of the lack of shelter. There is also the impact on physical health and mental health, school attendance and relationships. Those children are not in a position to feel a part of the community. It is difficult to join the local football club if you are not sure where you are going to spend each night. It is difficult to have social occasions with friends or other members of the community. There are many knock-on impacts of the homelessness and housing crisis. I am particularly worried that we are storing up a sense among the young people of the country at the moment that nobody is listening and nobody cares. We may pay a price for that in the future.

I welcome, and compliment the Minister for establishing, the strategic housing activation office. However, a number of different bodies and organisations seem to have some remit across the housing sector. The public are becoming a bit frustrated. There might even be a lack of awareness of what each body does. The Minister is going to initiate the strategic housing activation office, which seems a good idea. We also have the Housing Agency, a Cabinet subcommittee on housing, the LDA, all the approved housing bodies, the local authorities, a housing task force in many local authorities and a homelessness task force in many local authorities. The Housing Commission also proposes to establish a housing delivery oversight executive. There is a lot going on. There seems to be a lot of different people and groups with different remits. When people hear about these housing bodies, they think solely about housing supply and assume that each of those bodies has some remit in terms of direct supply. It can be difficult to address what each of those bodies does.

That goes some way towards the issue we face here. The public wonders how we complicated the home building and housing process. One thing that frustrated me extensively when I was a member of the local authority was the time it took from the concept of a housing scheme to the point of Part 8 planning. The Department claims the length of time for local authorities to draw up the designs for social housing projects and secure Government approval is 59 weeks. I often found it took longer than that. In fact, particularly for affordable housing, it seemed to take much longer than that, which was frustrating. My recollection is that there was a four-step approval process. It was mentioned earlier that the programme for Government commits to establishing a single-step approval process. If we are calling it a single-step process, we should provide a timeline. The Department should be able to turn around a decision on a public housing scheme in a very short period to allow the local authorities to carry on and build it. It was mentioned earlier, and there is credence to the suggestion, that the Department might be somewhat risk averse and not satisfied enough to give the local authorities the funding and let them build without participating in their decision-making process.

One place where I would not support the Housing Commission is in respect of the proposal to end the tenant purchase scheme. That is something we should maintain. We should always continue to promote homeownership.

There has also been discussion about ending rent pressure zones and a rent reference scheme. One thing that rent should reference is the standard of the private rented accommodation of which a person is availing.

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