Galway housing forum calls for unified delivery system to unlock stalled supply
Report warns fragmentation, infrastructure delays and siloed governance are preventing Galway from delivering homes at the scale required
13 May 2026 | 📧 editor@breakingground.news
A major housing delivery forum convened by Galway City Council, Galway County Council and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has concluded that Galway’s housing crisis is being driven less by a shortage of land and more by a fragmented delivery system that is delaying infrastructure, planning and coordinated decision-making.
The report, prepared by Genesis for the Galway Housing Task Force following the Housing Delivery Forum held at the Galmont Hotel in November 2025, brought together local authorities, Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), utilities, developers, planners, financiers and State agencies to identify the structural barriers preventing housing delivery across the city and county.
The central finding of the report is that Galway has “significant capacity to increase housing delivery”, but that this capacity remains “largely unrealised because the delivery system itself is fragmented”.
Participants identified six recurring themes shaping Galway’s housing landscape, including land activation challenges, weak cross-sector coordination, infrastructure bottlenecks, underdeveloped masterplanning, limited use of land assembly mechanisms and insufficient engagement with landowners.
The report states that the issue is not a lack of available land, but the inability to activate strategic sites due to infrastructure deficits, delayed approvals and disconnected governance structures. Strategic growth areas highlighted included Ardaun, Garraun-Oranmore, Briarhill and the Tuam Road corridor.
Stakeholders repeatedly identified water, wastewater, ESB connections and transport infrastructure as the single biggest constraint on delivery. The report notes that utility engagement typically occurs too late in the development process, often after site layouts and planning proposals have already been shaped.
Participants described a system where “housing requires joined-up thinking”, but where agencies continue to operate in silos with overlapping mandates and no single organisation responsible for whole-system delivery.
Planning and zoning processes also emerged as a major source of frustration. Stakeholders pointed to inconsistent interpretations between planners, delays caused by objections and judicial reviews, and zoning decisions that are disconnected from infrastructure realities.
The report states that development plans are often “difficult for the public to understand” and that duplication across Local Area Plans, Development Plans and planning applications adds further delay to projects.
One of the strongest recommendations emerging from the forum is the creation of a Joint Galway City and County Housing Office to coordinate housing delivery across local authorities, utilities, the Land Development Agency, AHBs and private developers.
The report also recommends establishing a dedicated Infrastructure Forum involving Uisce Éireann, ESB Networks, Transport Infrastructure Ireland and the National Transport Authority to jointly sequence enabling works and resolve infrastructure pinch points.
An Active Land Management Team with Compulsory Purchase Order powers is proposed to accelerate land assembly, resolve title issues and activate stalled sites.
The forum participants also called for major reform in how Galway plans and communicates growth. Recommendations include integrated masterplans for key growth areas, supported by 3D modelling, virtual reality tools and digital twins to improve public understanding and reduce objections.
The report argues that Galway must move from “an objection-driven model” to one based on early, visual and collaborative engagement with communities.
Funding and viability were identified as another systemic weakness. Stakeholders highlighted six to twelve-month delays in funding approvals, annual budget cycles that do not align with multi-year delivery programmes, and difficulties for smaller developers accessing forward funding.
To address this, the report recommends multi-annual infrastructure funding, rolling loan funds, forward-funding mechanisms for SME builders and greater use of risk-sharing models between the State and private sector.
The forum’s recommendations closely align with the Government’s Delivering Homes, Building Communities Action Plan 2025–2030, published the day after the event, particularly around infrastructure-led delivery, land activation and coordinated governance.
A roadmap included in the report sets out immediate actions, planning and design measures, infrastructure activation steps and long-term scaling actions intended to move Galway “from fragmentation to integration”.
Among the first actions proposed are the establishment of the Joint Galway Housing Office, the Infrastructure Forum, open-data sharing protocols and securing multi-annual funding streams.
The report concludes that Galway’s ability to deliver housing at scale will ultimately depend not on land availability, but on whether it can establish a coordinated, integrated delivery ecosystem capable of aligning infrastructure, planning, funding and governance behind a single pipeline of homes.
FURTHER details and what these recommendations mean for practitioners: “Practicality, not just a yellow box on a map”: Galway Housing Delivery Forum puts planning reform – and 3D planning tools – at the centre of the fix https://propertydistrict.ie/practicality-not-just-a-yellow-box-on-a-map-galway-housing-delivery-forum-puts-planning-reform-and-3d-planning-tools-at-the-centre-of-the-fix/
