Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas le mo chomhghleacaí an Teachta Healy. I was elected in 2016 and since then, with all my colleagues here, we have begged, implored and appealed to the Government to declare a housing emergency to recognise that we have crisis but it has utterly failed to do that. Once again, it keeps turning language on its head, even in relation to social housing as it called HAP provision social housing. I am here to support this motion. The Housing Commission report has been quoted many times. It is really worth quoting because the Housing Commission had 200 meetings and developed 83 recommendations. I want to highlight three alone that we rarely hear from the Government. The report said we should base our housing policy on an assessment of the housing required for a well-functioning society. We cannot have a well-functioning society if tenants are going from emergency to emergency to emergency accommodation. Another prominent finding was the negative impacts of housing crises on overall quality of life in Ireland. Some 74% of respondents indicated that their housing situation negatively affected their quality of life. Another really important recommendation for me was that "account must be taken in housing policy of the full economic and social costs associated with not meeting Ireland’s housing requirements." Of course, the easiest cost to identify is the money we are putting straight into landlord's pockets and calling it social housing under HAP, under long-term leasing and under RAS.

Then we have a situation in Galway where we have entities working on their own. There is lots of land at Ceannt Station where an entity is doing entirely its own thing. Do you know what the docks area is going to develop? Not social housing and not public housing but premium housing on public land held in trust by the harbour company for the people of Galway.

They are going to get the highest price on their site to develop premium housing. This is in a city where we have a catastrophic housing crisis.

The Simon Community produces a report every quarter to say there are no houses available, even under the discretionary scheme where the money goes higher under HAP. No houses are available. I am again waiting for the Simon Community's first quarterly report for this year. We all have people coming to our offices who have been waiting between 16 and 20 years for houses. Homeless services in Galway city are at capacity. The Government is simply ignoring the Housing Commission, which was set up at its request and which held all of those meetings. The commission made 83 recommendations and indicated that we need a radical reset of housing policy. Anybody with a bit of sense would say we have failed. Put your hands up. We all agree. The system has failed, but the Government persists in rewarding developers and rewarding private, for-profit businesses on every level - in direct provision and in housing.

In respect of homeless services, a figure was cited earlier by one of my colleagues. Surely at some stage the Government is going to recognise the cost of not doing something, as the commission has pointed out. That cost is going to be astronomical, both psychologically and financially.

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