Results 24,021-24,040 of 40,897 for speaker:Simon Coveney

Seanad: Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Bill 2016: Second Stage (16 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: Many questions have been asked and I will try to deal with as many as I can. If I miss any please feel free to contact me before next week. A number of themes came through. I am a little uncomfortable with the terminology "fast track planning" because it suggests it is being rushed and it is not. We are speaking about putting in place a properly resourced process whereby there is...

Seanad: Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Bill 2016: Second Stage (16 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: There is a planning division in An Bord Pleanála which will work on these applications. It is the board members who will make final decisions but the recommendations-----

Seanad: Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Bill 2016: Second Stage (16 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: Let me finish. Housing division will be established in the board specifically to examine these in detail. It will be well resourced from a planning perspective. It will also have a sufficient number of members. We can tease through these issues again. I take the Senator's concern and I have not done this lightly. The vast majority of houses which obtain planning permission next year...

Questions on Proposed Legislation (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: Maybe Deputy Kelleher is auditioning himself. We introduced that Bill in the Seanad yesterday and we finished Second Stage yesterday. I hope Committee and Report Stages will be finished in the Seanad next week and that, therefore, we will be in a position to bring it into the Dáil in the first week in December.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Private Rented Accommodation Costs (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: The significant increases in rents we are seeing, particularly in urban areas, are primarily caused by a severe shortage in supply. The best way to address rents in the long term and benefit the entire sector is to increase the supply of rental accommodation and accelerate the delivery of housing for the private and social rented sectors. However, I acknowledge that short-term measures are...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Private Rented Accommodation Costs (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: Striking a balance is difficult; if it was easy, we would have acted months ago. Sinn Féin has made proposals on numerous occasions and I understand the party intends to introduce another Private Members' motion in two weeks' time, which is just before we are due to the launch the rental strategy. I am not sure if this will be helpful given that we are trying to finalise a rental...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Private Rented Accommodation Costs (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: The rental strategy is an important part of the housing strategy. The rental market has doubled in size in the past 20 years. Thousands of families rely on a sustainable and predictable rental market to provide certainty about where they will live in six weeks, six months or six years. We are trying to respond to changing circumstances and the crisis in supply in many parts of the country....

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: That is a fair question. Rebuilding Ireland's core objective is to increase and accelerate housing delivery to meet demand. In the context of State lands, that means extracting the optimum housing supply in the shortest possible timeframe, while also securing the greatest value for money possible in terms of State-owned assets. In practical terms, this will include accelerating social...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: That is a very fair point. Depending on where lands are located, the circumstances in the communities around them and so on, sometimes we need to actively try to get private housing in certain areas in order to create real mixed-tenure and broader communities - O'Devaney Gardens is a good example of that. In other areas, it may be sensible to have a higher percentage of social housing...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: I do not have a closed mind. I find it difficult to believe that local authorities would be able to manage projects more efficiently than a competitive tendering process where a project goes to market and the person who produces the best and lowest cost proposal will be awarded the contract. Local authorities should be involved in the management of the process. By and large, however, the...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Planning Issues (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: The Deputy has asked a slightly different question to the one that was tabled. I will respond to his comments. We are now working with the Housing Agency to put together an independent audit of build cost. The Deputy has requested that for some time and of course it makes sense to do it. I do not think we should rely on the Chartered Surveyors of Ireland, even though the report it...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Planning Issues (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: We have been acting in trying to get down the cost of building a house. That is what the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, is all about. It is also why we are making publicly owned land available in an effort to create joint public private partnerships and in getting affordable housing projects moving. This is why we are looking at a much more streamlined and efficient...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Planning Issues (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: When making the decisions in the Rebuilding Ireland strategy, we looked at the process of building a house and looked at the levers that are controlled by the Government, by local government and by me. We looked at the obvious things that we could change. We know, for example, that 15 planning applications for more than 100 houses have been submitted to An Bord Pleanála this year. We...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Social and Affordable Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: The 47,000 social housing units to be delivered under Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, span the years 2016 to 2021. All of these 47,000 units will be available for local authorities to utilise in addressing housing need for those on waiting lists. Of the overall total,up to 33,650 will be owned and available to be managed by local authorities. Of these 33,650...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Social and Affordable Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: Part V is not leasing.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Social and Affordable Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: With regard to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, while I was in talking about how we can deliver more social houses, Deputy Boyd Barrett was outside protesting.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Social and Affordable Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: As opposed to making a contribution to the solution, he was just screaming and shouting, as usual. The issue for Dún Laoghaire or for anywhere else is that its local authority decides how many social houses it wants to deliver and then we will pay for them. We want to work with local authorities to ramp up social housing delivery dramatically. I made that very clear when I was in...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Social and Affordable Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: The point I was making about protesting is that we were out there to discuss how we ramp up and significantly increase social and affordable housing provision in Dún Laoghaire, which has specific problems because of the extraordinarily high average rents and house prices there. We need to tailor solutions, as I made clear to some of the councillors who are connected to Deputy Boyd...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Commission on Domestic Public Water Services (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: We got €280,000 to spend on the costs, which are expenses related to the commission. That money has not been spent yet. Most of it is for the cost of providing staff from the Institute of Public Administration, IPA, to service the secretariat. That cost relates to a senior researcher, a researcher, administration support - as well as the involvement of the IPA's director general in...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Commission on Domestic Public Water Services (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: That is not my understanding.