City housing list tops the 3,000 mark for first time

Date Published: 30-Sep-2010

By Dara Bradley

The number of people on the local authority housing waiting list in Galway City has topped 3,000 for the first time and almost 500 more applicants in need of housing are waiting to be assessed to see if they can get on that list.

But efforts to clear the backlog of people waiting to be housed have been severely hampered by a lack of funding – Galway City Council will build just six new social houses between now and December 2011.

The City Council’s new Housing Progress Report, which outlines the full extent of the city’s housing crisis, shows that the local authority has abandoned plans it had to develop 349 homes for the disadvantaged because it hasn’t the money.

It has suspended plans to build six estates that would have contained a mix of affordable, social and voluntary houses. The Council has suspended plans to build 72 units on a site on the Headford Road; 43 units on Bóthar na Chóiste; 163 units at Ballyburke; and 69 units on the Ballymoneen Road.

Plans to build an unspecified amount of units at two other sites, one on the Ballymoneen Road and another in Ballinfoile Park, have also been suspended.And as the plans for more houses have been abandoned, the waiting list for homes continues to grow.

There are now 3,024 people waiting for a home, up by 117 in the months April, May and June of 2011.

The majority of the people and families on the list are there because they are “unable to meet the cost” of accommodation they are currently in. Homeless, Travellers, elderly, disabled and those who have a medical need or who are living in overcrowded accommodation are among the other reasons for those on the list.

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