Results 7,041-7,060 of 34,663 for speaker:Seán Fleming
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: I understand that people can get employment and they can pay extra. I have never encountered a scheme in which somebody did not have to pay extra, on top of the HAP payment. Are there any cases where the HAP covers the full rent?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: In other words, the landlord is quite happy to take the HAP payment.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: Send the committee statistics on the number of cases where the HAP covers the rent. I know some landlords who are quite happy to take the HAP payment and leave it at that.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: In some cases, I am aware of landlords who seek no additional rent. They just take the HAP. Perhaps they are not over-stretched and are happy with that. There are still some good people who are not looking for the last penny from the scheme. My point is that one has to be on a very low income to get into HAP initially. Is that correct?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: Is that net of income tax?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: However, social welfare income is counted, such as carer's allowance and extra things.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: It is net income. That is an important distinction. You mentioned that the average cost of building a local authority house last year was €212,000 versus €177,000 for buying. The issue in Laois is that the local authority has eased off on acquisition because it was competing against other local families who were trying to get a start. It could have bought everything in sight...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: At a good price.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: Does the €212,000 you mentioned for the building cost include the site cost?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: Okay, that is important.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: It could be quite low.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: The final issue is the rent to buy scheme, and I might have used the wrong phrase. It is for people who have been in mortgage arrears where an approved housing body is willing to buy it from the finance company and rent it over a long term to a tenant.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: Yes. You have to approve those houses. How many applications have gone through? The local authority has to approve the house as suitable for the tenant. It will not let a person who is a single occupant of a four-bedroom house and whose mortgage is in arrears participate in the mortgage to rent scheme. Tell me about that scheme.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: That is very little considering what one hears about the number in arrears.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: How long has the scheme been in place?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: Mr. McCarthy is saying that in four or five years, 400 cases have been processed but 900 are in the system. We are now back to processing the waiting list. In each year since the scheme was established, how many applications have been made and approved and how many were outstanding at the end of the year? It seems more cases are bogged down in the process than have come out the far end....
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: Will Mr. McCarthy clarify that because it has been a stumbling block? Some people were ready to go. Somebody advises them that they could be caught for €50,000 at any time if their property is in negative equity. Mr. McCarthy must have picked that up in the cases that are locked in the system. He should clarify that in writing.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: We will suspend until 3 p.m. When we resume, we will complete our discussion on Vote 34, Local Government Fund and Chapter 4 of the Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on central Government funding of local authorities. I thank everyone for the long morning session. Hopefully the afternoon will not be as long.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: We are resuming our consideration of the remainder of Vote 34 with the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. We are also considering the Local Government Fund and Chapter 4 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's 2017 report, which deals with central government funding of local authorities. I ask Mr. McCarthy to introduce any new witnesses who have joined him for this...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019) Seán Fleming: I will start for the moment. Our colleagues will be coming in as the vote in the Dáil concludes. I want to ask a couple of questions about the Local Government Fund. A few years ago, almost €2 billion was provided through the fund. There was €1 billion in motor tax receipts. We used to have the Exchequer contribution and the local property tax, LPT, as well. That...