Results 781-800 of 15,634 for speaker:Eoin Ó Broin

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Housing Schemes (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: 5. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to confirm the total delivery of affordable purchase and cost-rental homes in 2024 by local authorities, approved housing bodies and the Land Development Agency; and his views on the low output under these schemes and growing number of people unable to access these properties due to the unaffordable rents and house prices....

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Housing Schemes (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: Can the Minister tell us, if he has the figures, the final outturn for the affordable housing schemes delivered by local authorities, approved housing bodies and the Land Development Agency in 2024? Does he share my concern about the low output of these schemes to date and the increasing unaffordability of both the cost rentals and the affordable purchase units across the State?

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Housing Schemes (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: Unfortunately, the facts, as provided on the Department's website, flatly contradict the Minister's assessment of the success of these schemes. The target for affordable purchase and affordable cost rental in 2022 was 2,100 units. The Government missed that by 52%. For 2023, the target was 3,500. The Government missed that by 61%. For this year, the target for affordable homes to be...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Housing Schemes (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: Obviously, we will debate that matter when those figures are finally published but given that the Minister is operating from such a low base, to have the best year to date is hardly something to celebrate. Let us look at the affordability in two cost-rental projects, both on public land. In O'Devaney Gardens, the cost of the so-called "affordable" rentals there will be just under...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Housing Provision (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: 3. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to comment on the ongoing delay in his Department's approvals for social and affordable housing projects funded via SHIP, CAS, CALF, CREL and AHF; to confirm the total number of projects submitted to his Department under each funding stream since September 2024 to date in 2025; the number that have been approved, and the local...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Housing Provision (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: A significant number of social and affordable housing applications were delayed in the Minister's Department at the latter end of last year, pending approval. We do not have the final figure but it could be anywhere in the region of 5,000 units. At Cabinet, the Minister got approval to progress 3,000 of those. However, my understanding is that the vast majority of those have yet to be...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Housing Provision (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: The Minister's predecessor had a terrible habit of refusing to answer very reasonable questions from the Opposition during Priority Questions. I had hoped that the Minister would not repeat that pattern. Unfortunately, he has done so just now. He has failed to address the question. There was not a perfectly normal situation at the end of last year. We know that because the local...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Housing Provision (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: The additional €450 million of capital approved by Cabinet still means the total capital expenditure for social and affordable homes this year is less than the total outturn last year. It is an improved situation but it is not a better situation. To be clear, is the Minister telling me that a majority of those 3,000 units have completed all of the processes with the Department and...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Rental Sector (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: 1. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will introduce an amendment to the Planning and Development Act 2024 empowering planning authorities to apply administrative fines to short-term letting platforms such as a company (details supplied) and others where they advertise short-term lets in rent pressure zones that are not in compliance with planning law, as...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Rental Sector (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: As the Minister knows, the overwhelming majority of short-term lettings within the State are operating illegally and in clear breach of planning law. In 2022, the House dealt with legislation to strengthen the enforcement of the short-term letting regulations, specifically within rent pressure zones. Is this a proposition the Minister and his departmental officials are currently considering...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Rental Sector (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: It has been a decade since the issue of unregulated short-term lets in high rental demand areas was raised on the floor of the Dáil. Significant work was done on a cross-party basis in the Oireachtas housing committee in 2018. An all-party report was agreed and we worked with the Minister's predecessor, the former Deputy Eoghan Murphy, on the 2019 regulations. The problem with the...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Rental Sector (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: Unfortunately, many of us warned of the challenges of enforcement when the former Minister, Eoghan Murphy, was introducing the 2019 regulations. There is a solution to this as regards the platforms, that being, to amend the Planning and Development Act to allow planning authorities to apply administrative spot fines to platforms like Airbnb for every day they advertise properties that are...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Defective Building Materials (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: 24. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government when he will bring forward amending legislation to ensure homeowners approved for a defective block remediation grant can avail of the most recent Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland square meter costs. [12584/25]

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Defective Building Materials (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: 109. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government for an update on the interim funding for multi-unit development defects remediation; the total number of schemes that have applied; the schemes approved; the total number of units involved in each scheme; the moneys approved, allocated and spent to date in 2025; and when works are expected to commence and conclude on each...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Provision (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: 61. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government for an update on the introduction of allocations schemes for cost rental developments and income thresholds for single people sharing, as set out in legislation passed by the Oireachtas in November 2024. [12587/25]

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Traveller Accommodation (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: 83. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of new traveller specific accommodation units delivered in 2024, by local authority area; the average cost per unit in each local authority area; and the total expenditure on the delivery of these new units in 2024. [12586/25]

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Provision (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: 100. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to provide the final quarter social and affordable housing figures for 2024, including the full-year figures for social new build, acquisitions, cost rental and affordable purchase. [12585/25]

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: Driver Test (20 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: 235. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the reason for a delay at a driving test centre (details supplied); if he is aware that some applicants have been waiting 20 weeks for a test date; the actions being taken to ensure an efficient service is provided from the location; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13219/25]

Social Housing Tenant In Situ Scheme: Motion [Private Members] (19 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: The concern - and it is a genuine concern - that has motivated us in bringing forward this Private Members' motion is that the capital funding announced by the Minister's Department to date, and the new restrictive eligibility criteria, will result in fewer tenant in situ purchases this year than last year, even if the demand is the same. That is the central concern here. The total capital...

Social Housing Tenant In Situ Scheme: Motion [Private Members] (19 Mar 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — under significant pressure from the Opposition, the Government reopened the Social Housing Tenant in-Situ Scheme in 2022, and, following further pressure from the Opposition, provided much needed flexibility in the operation of the scheme in 2023; — since April 2023, more than 2,500 households have been prevented from...