Results 13,821-13,840 of 27,055 for speaker:Darragh O'Brien

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Wastewater Treatment (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank the Deputy for his ongoing representations on behalf of the community in Crossbarry. As he said, on 21 September last year I announced allocations under a new multi-annual capital investment programme which was developed to provide a water infrastructure resolution programme for 2019-2021. That will allow a progressive resolution of housing estates with developer-provided water...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Wastewater Treatment (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: Following the Deputy's question, I will endeavour to expedite the review of the submission that we received on 22 October. I am expecting that in the coming weeks. As he knows, I will visit his constituency very shortly and will endeavour to have an update around that time. A detailed review of a number of projects is being carried out, which includes how the pilot project worked and...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Wastewater Treatment (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: The Deputy can be assured that I am acutely aware of the issue in Crossbarry thanks to his representations to me. There are, unfortunately many towns and villages like Crossbarry across the country that need resolutions to this issue, including those that have deficient wastewater infrastructure or do not have any wastewater infrastructure at all. I can assure the Deputy that we will move...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Housing Provision (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank the Deputy for raising this matter again. It is a serious one and I am familiar with it because the Deputy has raised it a number of times. To move away from the standard answer on this and give the Deputy the facts as they stand, I have engaged with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, as has my Department, to make every effort to ensure that those dwellings in St....

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Defective Building Materials (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank the Deputy for his question and for his engagement on behalf of his constituents in Clare over recent months on this issue. A lot of work is going on with regard to the defective block mica scheme that I hope to bring to a conclusion very shortly. This will impact on other counties in a positive way. I visited Clare over the summer and I met homeowners and visited their homes with...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Defective Building Materials (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank the Deputy. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Cleary and Mary Hanley in Clare and the group of residents. We are not losing time. I want to say very clearly there is no objection to expanding the scheme. If the data stacks up, and I have no reason to think it will not, the scheme will be extended to take in the county. It is important to note that even if there was nothing...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Defective Building Materials (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: If it is okay with the Deputy, I will not go into the specifics of the meeting that happened the day before yesterday. It was a positive meeting. The Department and the local authority are working together to deal with some clarifications. I say clarifications rather than issues. This is not unique. We have had submissions from counties Mayo, Clare and Limerick. They are detailed with a...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Housing Policy (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank the Deputies. The commission will be independent of my Department and independent of Government. I do not want to set its work programme. However, the terms of reference will be broad enough. The Deputies will see that. I expect that the commission will look at areas such as standards, delivery, cost and constitutional reform, where it is required. The terms of reference will be...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Environmental Policy (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: The Deputy is 100% correct that it is a real emergency and needs to be tackled. Right now, five local authorities - Fingal, which is my local authority, Wexford, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Dublin and Kerry - employ biodiversity officers, so there are 26 other local authorities where we have to get dedicated biodiversity officers in place. Neither I nor the Minister of State, Deputy...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Environmental Policy (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: We support every local authority in any way we can. The Deputy, as Chairman of the joint Oireachtas committee, has an important role in encouraging local authorities to get up and running in this space. We have a lot of work to do. There is no question about that. As I stated, we have a robust plan to arrest the decline in biodiversity and it needs to be led at local level. The...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Housing Policy (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 and 66 together. As the Deputy rightly stated, the programme for Government committed to establishing a commission on housing. The Deputy was central to those negotiations. It is in the programme for Government. The commission will examine issues such as tenure, standards, sustainability and quality-of-life issues in the provision of housing, which is...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Housing Policy (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: We are on track to get the commission up and running on time. There has been a lot of work in this. Obviously, we want to ensure the commission is populated with the right people with the right expertise and that we have a cross-section of knowledge and expertise feeding in. It will meet formally once a month, with 12 meetings each year. Work will also be done within the subgroups. I...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Environmental Policy (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank the Deputy for his question. It is important, relevant and particularly timely. Under section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, each local authority chief executive is responsible for the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authority for which he or she is responsible. The role and duties of biodiversity officers...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Local Authorities (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank the Deputy for the question. He will be aware that Housing for All is our Government’s plan to increase the supply of housing to an average of 33,000 units per year over the next decade. This target includes the delivery of about 90,000 new social homes and just short of 54,000 new affordable homes from 2022 to 2030. As I mentioned, Housing for All is supported by an...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Local Authorities (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: The Deputy is correct that there are challenges in this area, including in building up resources in local authorities. I agree with the Deputy completely that the challenges we face in housing are not just urban-centric, they exist all across the country in urban and rural areas. Our job as a Government and my job as the Minister is to support local authorities to enable them to deliver in...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Local Authorities (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I am familiar with the proposal from St. Patrick’s College in Thurles. On Tuesday of this week, I had a bilateral meeting with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, to discuss several issues around student accommodation. Included in those discussions was the issue of how we might be able to assist in providing accommodation on...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Real Estate Investment Trusts (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: This question demonstrates Sinn Féin's priorities in housing. It gets two priority questions every six weeks, and it did not ask about rent, homelessness, affordable housing or building capacity in the construction sector but has raised this non-issue. It has done so, and deems it as important, because it wants to create a controversy and sow discontent. It wants to put its own...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Real Estate Investment Trusts (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I am very serious about the housing crisis and the challenges this country faces, about the people on our social housing waiting list and about the 8,475 people who do not have a home or are homeless. The Government has a plan with 213 actions to tackle it. We have introduced the Affordable Housing Act, which Sinn Féin supported even though it criticised it throughout its passage, and...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Real Estate Investment Trusts (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: We are making the largest intervention any government or the State has ever made in housing in Housing for All, a fully financed, multi-annual plan, backed by more than €20 billion, more than Sinn Féin sought. We have banned bulk-buying of family homes and duplexes. Just this week, we introduced an owner-occupier guarantee, which will come forward in the large-scale residential...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Rental Sector (11 Nov 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: Legislative reforms to regulate the short-term letting sector through the planning code, in areas designated as “rent pressure zones” (RPZs), were introduced under the Planning and Development Act 2000 (Exempted Development) (No. 2) Regulations 2019 which came into effect on 1 July 2019. Notwithstanding the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, significant work on...