Results 10,481-10,500 of 34,729 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: The Department is committed to an exercise of tidying up but it has no target as to what it wants to achieve.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: Was that not done the last time?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: Some have been approved since but never did anything. When was that?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: In other words, the Department did a tidying-up exercise a few years ago and it is telling us that it is very difficult to get on the register now. Only one or two are approved each year. However, it is now saying that some may have come on in the past few years, having got charity approval and proved their bona fides, but they have never done anything. Based on the one or two approved per...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: Does the Department have a timeline for that tidying up exercise?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: Is it on the list for this Dáil term?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: That is something. The Comptroller and Auditor General also stated that the Housing Agency acts as an intermediary to purchase targeted suitable residential properties from banks, investors and owners. For whom does it act as an intermediary?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: These are perhaps vacant properties where the banks have entered into possession.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: What commission does the agency get for doing all of this for the banks?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: Some fool - the organisation; I do not mean an individual. Mr. O'Connor is saying that the agency is acting as the banks' selling agent and auctioneer and finding people to buy properties. It is getting blue-chip purchasers who have no problem with mortgage approval. Nobody else would do that for the banks for nothing. I ask Mr. O'Connor to go away and think about that. The agency should...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: Thanks.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: When was this introduced?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: Will our guests talk us through this? It is the main reason they are here today. There is €1.4 billion for housing but we cannot get the chief executives to operate something that the Department says it discussed with them, namely, a good idea that will speed things up.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: That is why we need to meet a chief executive or two to help us understand where the logjams are located. The witnesses can understand why we are here.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: Mr. John McCarthy is saying that the 59-week timetable is the panacea. The one-stage process might not amount to a hill of beans if the 59-week process works.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: One is only at stage two with the first batch-----

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: Five years into a housing crisis and it is only now that the Department is coming up with the idea of compressing the whole process from beginning to end.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: The the most common phrase at local authority meetings is "It is with the Department".

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: Yes, but 59 weeks works on the basis of everything going like clockwork, with no hitches in design or tender, no delays with tender approval and no delays in getting suitable people on site which is difficult, given how busy the market is at present. Builders are making more money from building offices and hotels than from housing. It does not allow for long lead-in periods for builders,...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

Seán Fleming: Mr. John McCarthy said that there are approximately 1,000 of these in the system at present, at various stages. In that context, I suggest that the Department should detail on its website a list of those projects, by county and by stage. It should be possible to see at a glance which ones have moved from stage one to stage two, for example, on a particular day. The public will then be able...