Results 1-20 of 1,817 for speaker:John Cummins
- Seanad: Housing Commission Report: Motion (29 May 2024)
John Cummins: I thank the Acting Chairperson. I welcome the Minister of State. Listening to the Sinn Féin representatives deliver their prepared speeches, one could forgive them for leaving out the fact that many of the things which are undoubtedly working and which were put in place by the Government have been shamelessly opposed by their party. Last year, 32,700 homes were delivered in this...
- Seanad: Housing Commission Report: Motion (29 May 2024)
John Cummins: How many approved?
- Seanad: Housing Commission Report: Motion (29 May 2024)
John Cummins: Careful there. One of your own TDs has said that you want to abolish-----
- Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Healthcare Infrastructure Provision (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: As a former teacher, I am sure the teacher is probably not best pleased with that. The students are probably happy. I thank the Minister of State for taking this Commencement matter. Like the Minister of State, I am extremely passionate about the need for a new purpose-built multidisciplinary early intervention and respite care centre for children with complex additional needs on the...
- Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Healthcare Infrastructure Provision (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: I am disappointed with the response but I know the Minister of State gets under the hood of things and clearly, we need to get under the hood of what has been going on here. To go from procuring a design team in 2021 to only having stage 1 completed in quarter 3 of 2023, when construction was due to commence in 2023, does not tally. Questions have to be asked of HSE estates. What has...
- Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Healthcare Infrastructure Provision (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: She was not given much to respond on in any case.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Building Regulations (Fire Safety): Discussion (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: I thank the witnesses for attending. They are the experts and we are the politicians, so the questions I am going to put forward will be in layman's terms. I have looked at the area of timber construction and nearly 90% of new-build construction in Scotland, whose climate is not too dissimilar to our own, is timber based, and it has gone higher than the 11 m that has been mentioned. Are we...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Building Regulations (Fire Safety): Discussion (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: What about the higher rise element of that? This goes to the point Deputy Ó Broin made about the guidance, notwithstanding the ability to be able to go through first principles.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Building Regulations (Fire Safety): Discussion (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: It just seems slow. Does Mr. Nestor wish to comment?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Building Regulations (Fire Safety): Discussion (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: In the case of living over a shop, for example, it is commonly pointed out it is very hard to apply current regulations to older buildings and that that is an impediment to bringing a lot of these buildings back into use. Mr. Keeley and Mr. Nestor might like to comment on that. We have seen excellent examples in my county, Waterford, through the repair and leasing scheme and so on, which...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Building Regulations (Fire Safety): Discussion (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: What about compartmentalisation?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Building Regulations (Fire Safety): Discussion (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: Sprinkler systems were mentioned. Is it the case a sprinkler system has to have its own, tanked source of water and that it cannot be connected to the mains for use in new apartment complexes?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Building Regulations (Fire Safety): Discussion (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: So it is the case that for use of the sprinkler system for X period of time in any new apartment complex, it has to have X capacity of water in its own right. Therefore, if we look at city centre and brownfield sites, we are looking at significant excavation under or on top with regard to the provision of its “own source” of water for the sprinkler systems. Is that the case?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Building Regulations (Fire Safety): Discussion (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: It seems like that is quite an engineering task to have to overcome when we are looking at density and requirements in constrained city centre sites. It is what it is, of course, but it adds significant cost to any build in terms of a viability measure in city centre sites.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Building Regulations (Fire Safety): Discussion (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: I want to go back to the issue of sprinkler systems. Mr. Keeley said that he had argued for the sprinkler systems to be installed in the nursing home setting. I would not disagree with him on this point. In Mr. Keeley's experience of dealing with fires in the course of his career, has there ever been a situation where the public water supply was not available?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Building Regulations (Fire Safety): Discussion (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: For that very reason, the fire tenders have tanks with sufficient capacity to manage until the next hydrant is reached.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Building Regulations (Fire Safety): Discussion (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: Where I am going with the question is the requirement to have tanked or elevated storage or reservoir storage for sprinkler systems. If the public water main is available to the Fire Service, then it is available to the building prior to the arrival of the Fire Service. To go back to the Department, I am really questioning the need for tanked or reservoir storage for sprinkler systems on...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Building Regulations (Fire Safety): Discussion (21 May 2024)
John Cummins: I am not questioning the importance of the system; I am questioning the source and supply of what goes into that sprinkler system. Is Mr. O'Dowd aware of any situation where a sprinkler system has not been able to avail of a public water source?