The city’s housing list is now effectively defunct following an endorsement by Galway City Councillors to accept new social housing regulations.
Long-term letting and rental accommodation schemes will now serve as the council’s solution to the “housing crisis”.
“This copperfastens the reality that the solution to the housing crisis is in long-term leasing,” said Independent councillor Catherine Connolly. She is concerned that applicants waiting for a council house may never receive permanent housing.
The draft regulations sought to effectively take RAS tenants and those on long-term leasing schemes off the housing list, many of whom only agreed to go on the schemes as a temporary measure.
“This is a fundamental change, the most radical shift in housing policy and security of tenants’ rights since the time of Davitt,” said Cllr Connolly. “No more local authority housing will be bought and we are not allowed to build any more houses in the near future.
“This marks the end of me voting on policy. With the stroke of a pen people who entered RAS thinking they would stay on the waiting list have disappeared. How could such an appalling document be passed destroying our tenants rights? To say we are sorting out our housing problem with long-term leasing and RAS is a shambles.”
Cllr Connolly said there is no security for any of the tenants on these schemes. She also added: “Without rents coming into the council from local authority houses public money is being paid out to private landlords.”
A second issue in the regulations will penalise tenants who refuse housing offers from the council.
“We are now entering an area where tenants will have their legal rights severely restricted depending on what type of house has been allocated to them,” said Cllr Connolly.
At Monday’s city council meeting, councillors raised the point that tenants have been forced to refuse housing due to undesirable locations, and poor living standards due to anti-social behaviour.
Many of the remaining boarded up local authority houses lie empty as tenants refuse to move into them. Cllr Pádraig Conneely said an important issue the council needs to address is that of anti-social behaviour. He suggests that those involved in anti-social behaviour be “thrown out in the street”.
Cllr Terry O’Flaherty said: “The people in private houses on the housing list that keep horses in their gardens should be removed from the list.”
However Cllr Connolly argued: “We’re removing the people not the horses. Are we not going to deal with the horses but evict the tenants?”
City officials informed councillors that it was not possible to remove people from the list because they keep horses, but the council needed to start enforcing the control of horses.
Doubtful of council enforcement, Cllr Conneely said: “When a tenant comes in here to collect their keys they are also given a little blue book, a tenant agreement book. The first thing done with that booklet is it is being thrown in the fire. There is no indication what or how anything is enforced.”
Cllr Donal Lyons requested a report from officials on the number of houses that are repeatedly turned down, and why.
