Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 6 July 2023
5. Deputy Catherine Connolly asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage further to Parliamentary Question No. 169 of 18 May 2023, if he has received the report in respect of 2021, 2022 and to date in 2023 from the Galway social housing task force; if so, if he will provide a copy of same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32786/23]
View answerBaineann mo cheist le cúrsaí tithíochta i nGaillimh - tá sé níos cirte easpa tithíochta i nGaillimh a rá - agus an tascfhórsa a bunaíodh breis agus ceithre bliana ó shin. Níl tásc ná tuairisc ar an tuarascáil. Níl aon tuarascáil feicthe againn fós. My question relates to the task force that was set up because of the housing crisis in Galway, which is unfortunately on equal footing with Dublin. We have heard nothing. There have been brief letters but there is no report from the task force four years later.
I am well aware this is a matter the Deputy has raised consistently. I wish to advise her that I have received a report from the chair of the Galway task force covering social housing and related issues over the period of 2021 to 2022. Once I and the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, have completed a review in consultation with officials, we will arrange for a copy of the report to be sent to the Deputy. We will also have to consult the members of the task force prior to forwarding the report.
I acknowledge the work and effort made by all the task force members in working together to respond to the challenges and drive responses to the delivery of public housing in Galway. The chair is taking on this role pro bono, having undertaken a similar role for the Cork social housing task force, where there was a focus on enhancing co-operation between the two councils and other partners. The Cork task force saw social housing delivery markedly improve and my intention is that the same drive will continue towards a similar outcome in Galway.
The Deputy will appreciate that there is no single, easy solution to the range of challenges. In particular, in the period covered by the chair's latest report there was major and worldwide disruption to construction following Covid, with some temporary site closures, supply chain difficulties, construction inflation, labour and skills shortages and impacts of the Ukraine war. The task force has given the Galway councils and their delivery partners a valuable opportunity to assist each other through those challenges. Building on that and driving further delivery and solutions is where I want the task force's focus to be for the next year. I know we can count on the support of public representatives in this work too.
In summary, we have received the report. We are giving it due consideration. We will be engaging with members of the task force and once we have had an opportunity to do that work we will certainly forward a copy of the report and would welcome observations.
We have a report. After that statement, clarity left the room. There will be further negotiation and the Minister of State is going to go back to the task force. When am I going to see a copy of the report? The purpose of the task force was to analyse the problem in Galway. Let me read from the minutes of the most recent task force meeting, where it was stated that emergency accommodation is non-existent, that services are under extreme pressure and there is currently a waiting list for services. This is about homelessness. Rents are rising by 19%. The average rent in Galway is up 19.4%. There are no homeless services, there is a task force that has not reported and there is a report now. When am I going to see that? Has an analysis been done? The councils are behind their targets for social housing. The task force acknowledged that. I am looking here at rents rising. The Simon Community is telling us there is no availability under HAP and the Minister of State is telling me I am going to get a report sometime in the future. He cited Cork. Was a report produced under the task force in Cork?
I cannot answer that. I will certainly clarify that point. On the Galway issue, the Deputy brought this up recently in the House and asked for the report to be published. We have gotten a report, which we have just received, as the Deputy will appreciate. She will appreciate that we need to give it proper due consideration. We have just received it. We are going to go through it in depth. The Minister met with the Simon Community in Galway just this Monday. It is something we are very conscious of. It is important that if we get a report we give it due consideration at both ministerial and departmental level. It was hugely important to us that we would have that report for the Deputy today. Once we have gone through the report - we have just received it - we will get it to her as quickly as possible but she will appreciate that we have to go through it forensically as a Department. Part of that will involve us engaging with the task force, the chair and the members and then we will get the report to the Deputy as quickly as possible. We would then very much welcome her observations and comments on same.
I have not just raised this recently. I have raised it consistently since the task force was set up. A task force was set up because of the housing emergency. I appreciate the Minister of State's efforts in getting the report but I would appreciate his comments on how it has taken this long to get a task force to produce a report in a city where the rents are rising 19.4%, where the homeless services are non-existent and where we have a waiting list of over 4,000 households and people on waiting lists for ten or 12 years. In addition, the docks are doing their own thing, Ceannt Station is doing its own thing and the Land Development Agency is doing something else. We are now hearing that the docks area will produce a master plan some time in the future and it will primarily involve four blocks of affordable housing. In a city that is crying out for public housing, there is no master plan. We have no master plan in the city. Can the Minister of State believe that? Each area is doing its own thing. I would have thought that the task force would have analysed and highlighted the issues and brought them back to the Minister years ago, saying what the problem was and what it was going to do.
When the Deputy brought this up previously, I undertook that we would get the report. We have a report now. We have a working document. It is not fair to say what the Deputy has said. Social housing delivery has taken place in Galway. We would obviously like to see a lot more but it is not as if there has not been any. In 2021, Galway city delivered 129 houses and Galway county delivered 117. In 2022 there was an improvement; Galway city delivered 150 and Galway county delivered 224. We have a document. We should deal with what we have now. We will give it active, urgent consideration. We will engage with the task force. We will give the Deputy a copy of the report as quickly as possible and then we will engage with her on it. We are all on the same page here. We have to look at the current situation. We have a lot of talk about the past. I am interested in the present and in the future. We have a report. It is a detailed report and we will give it detailed consideration. We will then forward a copy to the Deputy once we have done that. She will appreciate that in her own deliberations. It is important that we act and that we are seen to give active consideration to everything that is recorded and requested in the report.
