Results 21-40 of 6,045 for speaker:Thomas Gould

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 16 - Tailte Éireann (Revised)
Vote 23 - An Coimisiún Toghcháin (Revised)
Vote 34 - Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: I thank the Minister for being here. Unfortunately, I have to start with a negative comment on what he said to the effect that it is not realistic to hit the targets the Government should be hitting this year. That is an outrageous admission for the Minister for housing to make. He was in the previous Government. He was part of the Government that went around during the election campaign...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 16 - Tailte Éireann (Revised)
Vote 23 - An Coimisiún Toghcháin (Revised)
Vote 34 - Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: Just to clarify, when the ESRI and others produced data last September that showed the Government was not going to hit its targets the then Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for housing, Deputy O'Brien, used data from a German bank or some other body. The then Taoiseach and Tánaiste would not take the ESRI's information and now the Minister is telling us he is being realistic in...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 16 - Tailte Éireann (Revised)
Vote 23 - An Coimisiún Toghcháin (Revised)
Vote 34 - Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: That is fair enough. I would appreciate it if the Minister looked into this issue. I will move on to the fact that the derelict sites levy is not being collected by almost half the local authorities. There are local authorities that are not putting sites under the derelict sites levy. We have derelict sites. The figure nationally is €20 million but the figure for Cork is...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 16 - Tailte Éireann (Revised)
Vote 23 - An Coimisiún Toghcháin (Revised)
Vote 34 - Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: I know the Minister published a chart related to local authorities and their performance. What will he do to ensure the derelict sites levy is applied to sites and that derelict site levy funding of millions of euro is collected? Following from that, what is the Minister doing to make it easier for local authorities to use compulsory purchase orders? Will the Minister provide the...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 16 - Tailte Éireann (Revised)
Vote 23 - An Coimisiún Toghcháin (Revised)
Vote 34 - Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: The dereliction that is being allowed is unbelievable. It is not just in Dublin but in Cork, Limerick and everywhere. It is in towns and villages. Does the Minister have a plan to tackle that from a financial point of view?

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 16 - Tailte Éireann (Revised)
Vote 23 - An Coimisiún Toghcháin (Revised)
Vote 34 - Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: Sorry, I only have a few seconds left on the clock.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 16 - Tailte Éireann (Revised)
Vote 23 - An Coimisiún Toghcháin (Revised)
Vote 34 - Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: We will have to agree to disagree.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 16 - Tailte Éireann (Revised)
Vote 23 - An Coimisiún Toghcháin (Revised)
Vote 34 - Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: We will have to agree to disagree because my time is running out. The figures I have show there were 292 children homeless in Cork in the first six months of this year. The Minister cannot argue with that. To give some facts, in 2021, there were 224 children homeless in Cork, so there are an additional 49 homeless children in six months alone. The Minister might get a chance to come back...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 16 - Tailte Éireann (Revised)
Vote 23 - An Coimisiún Toghcháin (Revised)
Vote 34 - Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: Will the Minister fund and resource local authorities to start building houses directly, including social, affordable and cost-rental houses? It is all being subcontracted out now. I think the local authorities need to start building houses. Even doing this on a small scale would help. Will the Minister also fund the local authorities to have the staff to turn around all these boarded-up...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Issues Facing the Residential Rental Sector: Discussion (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: I thank the witnesses for being here; it is much appreciated. I wish to address Threshold on the gutting of the tenant in situ scheme and the limiting of funding. To me, that scheme was the best method the Government and the local authorities had for preventing homelessness. I have dealt with loads of landlords in Cork who were willing to sell and wanted to keep their tenants in the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Issues Facing the Residential Rental Sector: Discussion (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: I thank Ms O'Reilly for that. There are a lot of good, decent landlords out there who want to look after their tenants and who want to work with the council. Sometimes I do not agree with everything that happens with landlords but one must acknowledge that the vast majority of them are decent people. They have been left stranded in all of this for months. From the witnesses' point of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Issues Facing the Residential Rental Sector: Discussion (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: I would like it on record that some landlords are actually still leaving the tenants in place hoping that the tenant in situ scheme will be reopened. They have to be thanked for that, and the local authorities who do unbelievable work. The is also one point on HAP. With rents now going up, would the witnesses recommend that rent rises must be matched? I have just had to step out to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Issues Facing the Residential Rental Sector: Discussion (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: Threshold is trying to help renters and prevent people from becoming homeless. I have never seen homelessness at the level it is currently at. I have never seen the number of families and children affected. From the information supplied by Cork City Council, 46 families have been in emergency accommodation for more than a year. If we go back to 2021, there was none. There has been an...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Issues Facing the Residential Rental Sector: Discussion (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: I apologise for interrupting. It is just that time is against us. This may be something to put to the other two groups. I have a major issue with the number we are being given. There 146,000 vacant properties. I will tell a short story. I got a property put on Cork City Council's derelict sites list a number of years ago. I met the owner in the bar one night and he told me I was an...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Issues Facing the Residential Rental Sector: Discussion (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: No, he has loads of properties.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Issues Facing the Residential Rental Sector: Discussion (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: Mr. Deverell is using the word "friend" very loosely there.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Issues Facing the Residential Rental Sector: Discussion (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: We do not know.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Issues Facing the Residential Rental Sector: Discussion (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: A notice to quit is an eviction; let us call a spade a spade. For the people I am dealing with, a notice to quit is an eviction all over-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Issues Facing the Residential Rental Sector: Discussion (15 Jul 2025)

Thomas Gould: If it is a voluntary exit, they go into homeless emergency accommodation or they end up going into their parents' box room. That is homelessness by another name. I would like the RTB to collect more data because the data it is collecting is really good. When it comes to making Government policy, the more accurate and up-to-date the data, the better. I would also like to see a major...