The City Council risk assessment process utilised when processing the housing of sex offenders is clearly not working, a former mayor of the city has claimed.
Cllr Mike Cubbard said that he raised the matter after a sex offender wa shoused close to a chidlren's play facility in the city.
At Tuesday's meeting of Galway City Council, he raised what he said was "a very worrying concern" that has come to his attention in regards to housing allocation from the Social Housing List.
"I asked Galway City Council officials what was policy around housing individuals with a conviction for a Sexual Offence. This comes after some residents on the west of the city raised very serious concerns in September following the revelation that someone was housed in their estate with such a conviction.
"Furthermore, the proximity of this person to children’s play facilities was raised with me, an issue I took to the housing strategic policy committee in September. The residents association also raised their concern with Galway City Council in September, yet have not received a response to date – something which is completely unacceptable," he said.
At Tuesday's meeting when Cllr Cubbard asked senior Council officials what was the policy, he was told that a thorough risk-based system is in place, before housing a person. However, he was left dissatisfied with the answer.
"If this is the case, I have no faith in this process as it has clearly failed here. When I raised the concerns in September, nobody advised me of this risk-based system. In the reply I received this evening, I was also advised that a person with this conviction is still entitled to be housed as is their rights – I disagree with this too.
"In my opinion, if a person consciously goes out to commit such a devastating offence on an innocent person and is convicted of same, they should lose such a right," he said.
Cllr Hubbard said that priority should be given to upstanding people and not those who had committed sexual offences.
"We have nearly 4000 people and families on our housing waiting list currently, a majority of these are good upstanding people who would only add to a community. These people should be our priority and focus
"I have asked Galway City Council to share this risk-based system with councillors and to clarify to me that approved housing bodies have equal measures in place to ensure communities across this city are protected from these people. I am very clear that these predators have no place in our estates or communities.
In the quarter July – September, Galway City Council housed 28 people/families, of which 27 were direct local authority housing and one from an approved housing body.
"When you take out those housed directly from homeless services, Traveller specific accommodation and transfers, it shows only six people from the regular housing list received a property, at a time when 119 properties lay vacant.
"It is shameful. These figures show that we are completely failing in terms of housing in Galway despite all the fanfare you hear from Government on this. We must then look at the reasons for this and despite asking a number of times, I have no concrete reply as to why we are turning out such low allocations.
"I was advised the process can take time and it does take a period to turnaround vacancies which I somewhat accept, however I again revert back to the figures which show Galway City as extremely low in terms of national average when compared to other local authorities.
"We need to get better and more efficient in tackling our housing waiting list, we need to turnaround vacant properties at a rapid pace and in my view we urgently need to review the ‘risk based system’ that is in place when those convicted of sexual assault are being allocated a property," he concluded.
