Results 26,261-26,280 of 28,255 for speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: General Scheme of the Social Welfare (Child Maintenance and Liable Relatives) Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: What I would like to know is what I asked, namely, what the €95.23 would be in today's money. It would also be interesting to find out how much it would cost to increase it. Mr. Hession seems to be saying that it would cost very little money to increase it, in real terms, to what it was when it was set.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: General Scheme of the Social Welfare (Child Maintenance and Liable Relatives) Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Why reduce people to poverty and affect the next generation? That is what we are doing. With break-ups in particular, this applies to people who were comfortably off and the next thing their world falls apart. We all come across such cases. The most common case of maintenance is where there has been marriage breakdown and so on. That tends to be dramatic and traumatic for the children....

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I will have to leave the meeting early because I have to go to Árainn Mhór in County Donegal. It is an unpredictable drive, to put it mildly. I thank the witnesses for their presentations, which are useful. The Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act provides that housing authorities have a statutory responsibility for the assessment of the accommodation need of Travellers and the...

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: When Ms Timmons says the “majority”, does that mean 50, 60 or 70?

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I asked whether the Department had analysed the objective level of demand, that being, an audit of everyone living in substandard mobiles. If so, what was the number? In Galway, the number of loans allocated has not met the requirement. We need hard information. Ms Timmons stated that a good number of the units – I cannot remember the exact figure – were second-hand. We are...

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: If a caravan is four years of age and ten years is its lifetime, that would only give someone six years. If a new caravan were bought, though, that would give ten years or whatever it might be. I am only taking the average length of time.

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I am sorry, as I do not want to get into an argument, but the Department has decided, given that it is only providing people with a pot of €40,000. That leads to issues like caravan size versus quality. By setting an arbitrary number of loans that does not meet all demand and by fixing the amount of money, we are not giving people the flexibility to buy caravans that are the best...

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I know.

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I have been around Departments. So has my colleague here. Normally, a Department would say that a good-quality, brand new caravan was the best long-term investment and then find the evidence of what that would cost before any NGO had to come to it with that evidence. The Department would then put that to the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform....

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Sorry, I cannot accept that because the Department told Galway it was three applications but they got a lot more than three applications. My understanding is that this year the Department has told Galway that it is four applications.

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Was that information stipulated in the circular to the council?

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Perhaps the CCMA officials could answer my question.

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Is that from the one supplier?

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: No, the three trailers might be from the one supplier. I was told that people were told that one supplier had won the contract.

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Did the Department change the rule this year to make sure that local authorities could not do that? What about the one local authority that did?

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Is that irrespective of the supplier?

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Yes, I am all for that and for having a reputable supplier.

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I apologise for hogging the meeting but I have spent two years working on this issue. Given that a finite number of people live in trailers on halting sites in this country, I cannot for the life of me understand, with all the money swinging around this country and I am careful with money, why we cannot find out how many trailers are substandard and replace the whole lot of them. We must...

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: No, I am saying that is the only logic for working out what I have said. The only logical way of doing it is to work out how many families need an upgraded trailer and provide the trailers now, thus negating the need for a significant caravan loan scheme next year. Just do it now.

Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community: Accommodation for Travellers: Discussion (21 Sep 2023)

Éamon Ó Cuív: It is not a big ask because it is a one off. When Covid came, the Department found the money to deal with all sorts of issues. Second, I want enough money to be provided per trailer, while taking family circumstances into account, to give a really good quality trailer. I would prefer if trailers were new because they would last longer and the Department would not have to replace them so...