EU Housing Summit: Galway 2025
The EU Housing Summit – hosted by Ciaran Mullooly MEP, Vice Chair of the Special Committee on the Housing Crisis – was delivered powerfully in Galway this week.
*Day 1: https://caroltallon.com/eu-housing-summit-day-1-thursday-11th-december-2025/
Day 2: Every day is a school day… It was certainly my first time working on a basketball court, and while the countdown clock kept us in check, we were all on the same team, focusing on the same ‘basket’: How to deliver more homes, quickly, by streamlining, resequencing or radically overhauling the big blockages.
1️⃣ Emergency Planning & Approvals Pathway
2️⃣ Construction Capacity, Rapid Delivery & Procurement
3️⃣ Land Activation: Site Readiness & Infrastructure Bottlenecks
4️⃣ Adaptive Reuse of Existing Buildings
5️⃣ Viability, Community Acceptance & Other Considerations
We heard examples of emergency delivery by Garret Nestor, Clancy (prior input from John O Shaughnessy) & Eoin Waldron, MMC Consultant. Sean Downey of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) & Construct Innovate Steering Committee, broke down real industry capacity.
Huge thanks to John O’Connor, Genevieve McGuirk of IPAV – Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers, David Howard of Property Industry Ireland (PII) IBEC; & Tony Reddy of Reddy Architecture + Urbanism for setting the context for the urgency.
Also, my thanks to Aiden O’DONOVAN, HLM; Emmet Humphreys, Galway City Council; Michael O’Flynn, O’ Flynn Group; Phelim O’Neill, The Land Development Agency; Peter Cox, Carrig Conservation International Ltd; Tom Gilligan, Mayo County Council; Mark Johnston, Irish League of Credit Unions; Justin Molloy, CIF; Francis Gallagher, LDA; Fiona Cormican, CDir, PMP; & Jean Coleman, Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA)
It was the largest interactive workshop we have facilitated and this would not have been possible without our amazing rapporteurs for the roundtable workshops who facilitated, challenged and reported with the frankness needed: Tina-Marie O’Neill, Property Editor, Business Post; Rachael Stewart MBA, of Stewart Developments; Justin Molloy, Tom Gilligan; Shane Dempsey; David Howard; Fiona Cormican; Sean Downey; Aiden O’Donovan; Emmet Humphreys; Katie Markham and Build Digital and Gerard O’Toole FSCSI FRICS, SCSI – Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland – Mentimeter (powered by Laura Maye)
More session and panel posts, and lots more attendee feedback, to follow… (after I have spent the weekend reading the digital contributions, hundreds of Post-its, and the paper tablecloths full of attendee suggestions and ideas!)
*Photos below by Katie Tallon & Ben Dempsey
