Results 1,801-1,820 of 5,948 for speaker:Paul McAuliffe

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: I will not get bogged down in that differentiation but I appreciate the difference. This is a monumental amount of public money that appears to have very little value for money at its core. Taking HAP, €500 million was spent without any effort to leverage the total spend against value for money. If the Department entered the market with a budget of €500 million, it would be...

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: That is my point. There are 40,000 individual landlords who are being allowed to extract the maximum value for them. Who is representing the State on the other side? Often, it is very vulnerable people who have to secure those properties. We do not in any way support people to negotiate and they are often in very vulnerable circumstances. They could be leaving emergency accommodation....

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: It is incredibly limited but, again, for those key workers, it about securing the place and not in any way about identifying value for money. It is very clear that HAP and RAS are bad value for money overall. They are a necessary solution but bad value for money. I will turn now to the tenant in situ scheme which has been rolled out. I understand that by the end of this year, approximately...

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: It is a really important safety net to protect the 2,300 people who have received an eviction notice and now have a local authority home. Regardless of where they were on the waiting list, they have been protected from homelessness. I know there was a huge political battle about that at the time of the ending of the eviction ban but it is important to say that, under that scheme, 2,300...

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: Of course.

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: Yes, it is 2,300 units. This also highlights the criticism I just made of the HAP system. On all of those 2,300 homes, we are no longer making monthly payments and we are no longer susceptible to increasing rents in the market. We are not having an impact on the rental market by taking those 2,300 units and all those housing applicants are now housed. Those units are already being used...

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: Would it be fair to say that the difference in that case was that the units being acquired were new units coming on to the market and by acquiring them, the State was competing with first-time buyers and others? These are people's homes.

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: These are already people's homes. The Department has every intention of continuing to procure them next year, the year after and the year after that. In all likelihood, that person could continue to rent it for ten or 15 years. The landlord could continue to use it within the HAP or RAS system for ten, 15 or 20 years. Why is the Department not proactively approaching landlords, offering...

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: What Mr. Doyle is saying is that if we had a very large capital fund we would be able to do that. The Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform have provided very large amounts of capital funding. This is funding that we do not want to spend on an ongoing, annual basis and funding that we do not want to have an inflationary impact in the...

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: Yes, but it is better value for money.

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: Is Mr. Doyle accepting that from a cost-benefit analysis perspective, it is better value for money for the State to procure those homes?

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: Does Mr. Doyle not think there is an onus on policy makers within the Department to be bringing forward better ways for the State to procure than HAP and RAS? We have already accepted that it is a very expensive system. There is a method for us to reduce it over time but we are not exploring it.

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: To clarify, 4,000 tenancies exited HAP and RAS. Is that correct?

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: That is not necessarily the same as saying that the State is reducing the total use of HAP and RAS by 4,000.

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: Yes, but they are often replaced with other tenants using those same units. Is that not the case?

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: I very much welcome that. While the Comptroller and Auditor General would not describe it as non-compliant procurement, it looks like a crazy way of procuring that volume of units. Given that the State has very large capital reserves and the ability to purchase homes which we know we are going to rent out for at least three years and well beyond that, I do not understand why we are not...

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: I put it to Mr. Doyle that it should not be for the Comptroller and Auditor General, who produces an excellent report, to clarify the funding lines. In many ways, it is to the benefit of the Department that the issue is so complex because changes to local government funding can be very difficult for the people who set budgets to track. Councillors from all parties and none will say that it...

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: Let me be clear. I did mean to say to the benefit because in my view, sometimes the Department does not want local authority members to be able to find out where all of the deficits in funding lie.

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 3: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 4: Accountability of the Central Funding of Local Authorities. (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: Will the Department take the Comptroller and Auditor General's report and build on it?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Consideration of the Citizens' Assembly Report on a Directly Elected Mayor of Dublin: Discussion (Resumed). (26 Oct 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: The committee is meeting today to discuss the citizens' assembly report on a directly elected mayor for Dublin. We have received apologies from the Cathaoirleach, Deputy Matthews. This is the third of three meetings scheduled to assist the committee in fulfilling a direction from the Dáil to consider the recommendations of the citizens' assembly on a directly elected mayor for Dublin...