Social Housing Update

15th April 2015

In the most recent Housing Quarterly Report from the City Council dated the 31st March 2015 the number of households on the waiting list was confirmed at 4,041 with another 370 households in the County but looking to live in the City giving a total figure of 4,411. In addition there are 76 further housing applications under consideration. Separately 472 households have been housed in private houses under the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) with 117 more households housed in private houses under the Long Term Leasing Scheme(LTL). In relation to these rental schemes it is important to note that since the 1st July 2011 under Government Regulations all of these households have been removed from the housing waiting list and yet the security of tenure offered to these tenants is between 4 and 8 years if they are lucky.

Significantly also the housing waiting list has increased by 670 households in just one year since March 2014!

By any analysis we have a major housing crisis on our hands and yet the Government’s plan for Galway City is to build 518 new social housing units over a three year period between this year and 2017.

That proposed figure will not even keep up with the addition of 670 households to the list in one year alone!

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Press Release: Councillor Catherine Connolly.

Social Housing Update-The Spin and the Reality. 15th April 2015.

Government’s plan to build 518 social housing units over the three year period between 2015 and 2017 is utterly deficient in view of the latest City Council Housing Report which confirms that in one year alone between March 2014 and March 2015, 670 additional households went on the waiting list giving a current figure of 4, 411 households

Notwithstanding the rhetoric re the provision of additional social housing units and the recent government announcement that 518 Units will be built in Galway over a three year period, Cllr Connolly said this figure will not even keep up with the number of households added to the waiting list each month/year.

In the most recent quarterly report from the City Council Housing Department dated the 31st March, the number of households now on the waiting list is 4,041 with a further 370 households from the County List wishing to be housed in Galway together with 75 further applications waiting to be processed.

In addition this figure does not include the number of households who are in homes under the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) nor those under the Long Term Leasing Scheme (LSC) and whose names have been removed from the housing waiting list.

Councillor Connolly said just taking the basic figure of 4,411 households as given on the Galway City Housing Waiting List, this figure has increased by 670 households in one year alone since March 2014 when the figure was 3741 households.   If that rate of increase continues then we can expect that by March 2017 the increase alone in the number of households will be of the magnitude of 2,010 households in addition to the figure of 3,741. Yet the government’s plan for Galway City is to build 518 housing units over three years!

Clearly said Cllr Connolly while any proposal to build additional social housing units has to be welcomed, the government’s initiative utterly fails to even grasp the depth of the Housing Crisis in Galway City.

Without an honest recognition and analysis of the housing crisis in Galway government proposals are simply empty rhetoric leading up to a general election.

 

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