CITY TRIBUNE
‘Race and employment status’ discrimination in the rental market
People of colour and those from a low socio-economic background are facing discrimination on the rental market, a local councillor has said.
According to Councillor Níall McNelis, a number of landlords were deliberately blocking the tenancy applications of people based on race or on employment status, but doing so in a way that made it difficult to prove.
The Labour councillor told the Galway City Tribune that this was forcing people to accept poor-quality but high-cost accommodation – and leaving those in existing tenancies fearing the ramifications if they highlighted any issues.
“A big issue is damp and tenants are afraid to give out because it’s such a precarious situation. I have been talking to families who have children with asthma, being made worse by the damp, but they’re afraid if they open their mouth, they’ll be evicted.
“And it’s worse, I’m afraid, if you’re a person of colour. Tenants are afraid to give out – if they’re a person of colour, or maybe one person in a household is out of work, there’s a fear that an eviction notice will land if a complaint is made,” said the former mayor.
This situation was being exacerbated, said Cllr McNelis, by the fact that there were hundreds of people ‘queuing up’ to take a property when it went on the market.
He said homelessness in the city was likely to worsen in the winter months as notices to quit were being issued ‘left, right and centre’ at the moment, as many landlords were offloading properties.
“The general trend is people in long-term rental properties, who have been there for quite some time, are being served with notices to quit. The problem here is that if a landlord decides to sell their property, the tenant has very few rights,” said the Labour councillor.
“A lot of landlords are looking at the economic situation and getting a small bit jittery about the housing market, so they’re trying to get out ahead of the full economic impact of Covid-19.”
National legislation was required to ensure that long-term tenants were provided with better security of tenure, meaning that they could maintain their tenancy even if a property was sold, said Cllr McNelis.
This increase in the level of evictions, coupled with the return of students in the coming weeks, would put extreme pressure on the private rental sector, he continued.
“My fear is that because we rely so heavily on private rental, this will worsen the situation and lead to more people falling into homelessness.
“When we talk about homelessness, we think of people on the streets, which is a desperately sad situation. But what people are not seeing is those people falling into emergency accommodation or sleeping on friends’ couches without a place to call their own,” said the Labour councillor.
“This is the worst time to be served with a notice to quit because we have the colleges returning, and this year will be worse than last year because the majority of students will be back on campus. We will have three full years’ worth of students who weren’t here last year, entering the rental market for the first time in many cases.”
If issued with a notice to quit, people should immediately seek help, said Cllr McNelis, by approaching Threshold and their local authority to alert them of their situation.
“Up until recently, in the Council, we had an issue where people were presenting with a notice to quit but they couldn’t access help until the eviction actually took place. Thankfully, that problem has been rectified and there is now a member of staff who will log them in advance and begin the work that might avoid someone ending up in emergency accommodation.
“The work being done by COPE and Galway Simon is exceptional and they are dealing with the really hard cases, but we need to be putting in place solutions so that people aren’t ending up at crisis point,” said Cllr McNelis.
“If issued with a notice to quit, people should go to Threshold immediately because what they are finding is a lot of those notices can be improper, and the landlord may not be complying with the legislation that’s there – people need to make sure they ask Threshold before doing anything.”
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
The new Salmon Weir pedestrian and cycle bridge will be officially opened to the public next Friday, May 26.
Work on the €10 million bridge got underway in April 2022, before the main structure was hoisted into place in early December.
A lunchtime tape-cutting ceremony will take place on Friday, as the first pedestrians and cyclists traverse the as-yet-unnamed bridge.
The Chief Executive of Galway City Council, Brendan McGrath, previously said the bridge, once opened, would remove existing conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists and traffic “as well as facilitating the Cross-City Link public transport corridor over the existing 200-year-old bridge”.
The naming of the new bridge has been under discussion by the Council’s Civic Commemorations Committee since late last year.
One name that has been in the mix for some time is that of the first woman in Europe to graduate with an engineering degree – Alice Perry.
Ms Perry, who was from Wellpark, graduated from Queen’s College Galway (now University of Galway) in 1906. The university’s engineering building is named in her honour.
The bridge was built by Jons Civil Engineering firm in County Meath and was assembled off-site before being transported to Galway. Funding for the project was provided in full by the National Transport Authority and the European Regional Development Fund.
(Photo: Sheila Gallagher captured the city’s new pedestrian footbridge being raised on the south side of the Salmon Weir Bridge in December. It will officially open next Friday, May 26).
From the Galway City Tribune – Minister of State for Local Government and Planning, Kieran O’Donnell was labelled a “disgrace” for overturning councillors’ decisions to rezone land in the new City Development Plan.
Minister O’Donnell (pictured) confirmed in a letter to Council Chief Executive Brendan McGrath last week that he was reversing 25 material alternations made by councillors to the CDP 2023-29. He made the decision on the advice of Office of Planning Regulator (OPR).
Minister O’Donnell directed that 14 land parcels that were subject to land-use zoning changes by councillors as part of the Material Alterations to the Draft CDP should be reversed.
He directed that a further 11 land parcels in the city should become “unzoned”.
The Minister found that the CDP had not been made in a manner consistent with recommendations of the OPR, which required specific changes to the plan to ensure consistency with the national planning laws and guidelines.
At last week’s Council meeting Cllr Eddie Hoare (FG) asked for clarity on the process by which councillors could rezone the lands that had been changed by the Minister’s direction.
Cllr Declan McDonnell said, “What he [Minister O’Donnell] has done is an absolute disgrace”.
And he asked: “Do we have to have another development plan meeting to deal with it?”
Both Cllrs Hoare and McDonnell wondered what would become of the lands that were rezoned or unzoned by the ministerial direction.
Mr McGrath said the Council had put forward an argument in favour of retaining the material alterations in the plan, but ultimately the Minister sided with OPR.
He said if councillors want to make alterations to the new plan, they could go through the process of making a material alteration but this was lengthy.
The Save Roscam Peninsula campaign welcomed the Minister’s decision.
In a statement to the Galway City Tribune, it said the direction would mean the Roscam village area on the Roscam Peninsula will be unzoned and a number of land parcels would revert back to agriculture/high amenity.
A spokesperson for the campaign said: “the material alterations made by city councillors following lobbying by developers continued the long-standing practice of councillors facilitating a developer-led plan rather than an evidence- and policy-based plan that meets the needs of the city.
“The Minister’s direction is an important step in restoring confidence in the planning system. It is clear from the City Council’s own evidence on future housing projections that there was no requirement to zone these lands for residential purposes in order to meet the needs of the targeted population increase up to 2029,” the spokesperson added.
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