Housing waiting list up 670 in one year

A dozen households in Galway City are being added to the local authority housing waiting list every single week, new figures show.

According to the latest City Council waiting list, there are currently 4,411 households waiting for local authority housing.

The figures show that 4,041 are on the list in the city, while a further 370 households in the county – but looking to live in the city – are also waiting, while 75 applications are waiting to be processed.

The total figure is up by 670 since March of last year – around a dozen new households per week.

Independent councillor Catherine Connolly said the Government’s plan to build 518 social housing units in the city by 2017 is “utterly deficient”.

“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.

“This figure will not even keep up with the number of households added to the waiting list each month or year.

“In the most recent quarterly report from the Council, 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.

“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,” she said.

She said that if that rate of increase continues, the city can expect a further 2,010 households on the waiting list by March 2017.

“Yet the Government’s plan for Galway City is to build 518 housing units over three years.

“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,” said Cllr Connolly.