Results 3,241-3,260 of 9,814 for speaker:Steven Matthews

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: Just a note of information with reference to a question Deputy Gould raised, I received a recent notification from the Minister that he has increased the allocation from €50,000 to €60,000 for each local authority for vacant homes officers. There are part-time vacant homes officers but this is to bring them all up to full time. I just got that information two or three days ago...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: I am sorry but I have to interrupt. We can come back to the Senator's questions in the second round. I call Deputy Cian O'Callaghan.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: I will jump in here. If a local authority does not move sufficiently fast on a scheme that has been awarded funding, can the Department take that back and give it to someone who will use it? Have the witnesses ever needed to tell local authorities they are not moving fast enough?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: I am just looking at the members present online. Deputy Higgins is going to take the second Fine Gael slot.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: If witnesses from the Department of Rural and Community Development wish to come in any of these questions, could they raise a hand? When we have these hybrid meetings, we tend to focus on who is in the room and sometimes do not pay attention to who is online. Has Deputy Higgins finished her line of questioning?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: I think I can speak on behalf of the committee and say we would be committed to working with the witnesses on that because this series of four meetings relating to has generated huge interest. I look forward to producing a report at the end of it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: Have our guests done any recent research into street designs and how we lay out our streets? Can that be contributory to dereliction and vacancy? A street that is car-dominated, has two lanes of traffic, parking on either side of the road and narrow footpaths is not a nice place to be as a pedestrian. It may not be a place where one would like to shop. The whole street then becomes worn...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: I realise we are crossing somewhat into the active travel area and the remit of the Department of Transport but there is definitely close co-operation between the local authorities on active transport and the URDF in linking those places up.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: This leads me on to another question. We hear a great deal about the big-ticket items such as the €81 million project mentioned by Mr. Logan in Waterford on the North Quays. If I am a private building owner, and the Department has done a very nice square, a public space, under the new URDF, and I want to develop my second or third floor into apartments and residential living space,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: I am conscious there is often criticism of local authorities but, from my experience, they are doing fantastic work out there, particularly in areas of planning and active transport. I give the example of local authorities which have a county architect, someone who is able to oversee these projects from above and see how all of these parts work together. That is one of the additional...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: I am only halfway through the Town Centre First document and even less through Our Rural Future but I like what I have read so far. I will now move on to-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: I will open up to the third round of questions. If anybody wishes to raise his or her hand to ask any further questions, he or she may do so. I call Senator Boyhan.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: I have a couple of questions to finish off. I remember when the URDF and RRDF were announced and I seem to remember a climate resilience fund being announced at the same time of €500 million. Does anybody recall that at the time of the announcement?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: We can approach it as well. The opening statement of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage speaks about the Town Centre First policy. The next call is for projects for towns and aligning town centres first, which is good. That is what we want to see. The criteria will also specifically identify tackling vacancy. Will Ms Graham give some detail on how the application...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: When Ms Graham talks about tackling vacancy, I am conscious that when we start really looking at the detail of vacancy and dereliction, there can be a vacant home, site or commercial building. Those would not be derelict but rather just vacant. In tackling vacancy, is Ms Graham speaking about vacant buildings that used to have a commercial use in our towns? Is that the aim?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: Okay. Does the same apply in the case of dereliction?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: Ms Graham spoke about the emphasis on the core in the cities. Is it the same for our town and village renewal? Are we concentrating on the town centre or is that just something used in the cities?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: I have heard the Deputy raise that issue in the Dáil Chamber as well. I agree with him. Is the Law Reform Commission looking at compulsory sales orders? We have heard talk about compulsory sales orders and we know about CPO. Are compulsory sales orders on the agenda at all? I know Scotland was looking at them but it ran into constitutional difficulties.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: We might ask them ourselves. I call Deputy Gould.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Urban and Rural Regeneration: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Mar 2022)

Steven Matthews: As public representatives, we often get suggestions that town X gets everything and town Y gets nothing, or district X gets all the funding and district Y does not. When the Department is trying to judge the applications, does it try to look for equity across the country based on per capitaor population figures? This is very substantial and significant funding that can lift any town or...