Results 8,761-8,780 of 15,555 for speaker:Eoghan Murphy

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Policy (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: I ask Deputy Ó Broin not to deliberately misinterpret what I just said. What I said was that the €25 million that was secured from budget 2018 and 2019 would deliver a minimum of 650 homes. I also said that with regard to other sites, Poolbeg, for example, we will have an additional 15% of affordable units which will deliver approximately 350 homes. There is also an increase in...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Policy (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: The income criteria that will allow people to access these homes are being worked out in the context of the affordability scheme I am going to announce. We know that in 70% of LIHAF sites, two-bedroom and three-bedroom homes will come in under €320,000. The vast majority of them will come in under €300,000.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Policy (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: I ask the Deputy not to interrupt me. Of course affordability depends on a person's income. We intend to bring back the affordability measures that existed previously in the context of social and affordable housing. We will bring in a scheme for the cohort of people who are not eligible for social housing because their incomes are just above the limits and who cannot afford to buy because...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Vacant Properties (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: Vacant social houses, which are categorised as voids, need far greater repairs than normal reletting works to bring them to a suitable letting condition. They are vacant pending that work. Strong funding support has been given to all local authorities to remediate vacant social housing so the homes involved can be let again as soon as possible. This Exchequer funding is in addition to the...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Vacant Properties (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: We both acknowledge that the voids programme is an important piece of work. It is much cheaper for a local authority to get an empty social housing property that has been vacant, and could be vacant for a long time, back into use than it is to build a new property. When such homes become part of the social housing stock, people can be housed in them. It is important, in the interests of...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Vacant Properties (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: We have put more than €100 million into the voids programme. The NOAC report counted voids at a point in time. We have given figures in respect of the voids we have funded through the local authorities to get such properties back into use. Of course that includes properties that became vacant after NOAC did its work in 2014. There is no discrepancy between the figures. We follow...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Policy (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: Arising from a commitment I gave in October, my Department established a technical working group to update national policy advice on apartment developments and to identify and assess innovative solutions to our current accommodation pressures over and above conventional housing and apartment developments. The work of this group is nearing completion and will feed into the publication of new...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Policy (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: When we talk about what we are trying to do with the guidelines and standards for apartment development and new types of living we are not just talking about the immediate crisis. We are actually making sure that we can future-proof the growth of the country out to the 2040s. This ties in with the national planning framework which is being developed at the moment. It is my intention to...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Policy (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: I believe people would be happy to live in a bedsit as long as they had exclusive access to their own washing facilities.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Policy (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: To do that will require a change in the guidelines. I accept that we have had to take a brief pause here, but we are talking about the development of our country for the next 20 years and it is important that we get these new guidelines right, so that when they come into operation people will know exactly what the standards are and what they are building to for the next five, ten and 15...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Rental Sector (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: Rebuilding Ireland sets out that some 87,000 households will have their housing needs met by local authorities, using either the Rental Accommodation Scheme, RAS, or the Housing Assistance Payment, HAP, over the period to 2021. Exchequer funding for HAP in 2017 is €152.7 million. This will meet the continuing costs of existing HAP households at the start of the year and...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Rental Sector (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: We are spending taxpayers' money on Rebuilding Ireland, building more houses and looking after people who are homeless. There is going to be a 46% increase in spending next year from the commitments we got in the budget. That amounts to €1.9 billion. Some €1.4 billion of that will be capital spending on social house building. That will deliver approximately 5,900 social...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Rental Sector (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: Building is happening at quite a dramatic scale. When I publish the figures for the work we have done on the social housing side for this year it will show us exceeding almost all of our targets. We also have ambitious plans for 2018. I ask the Deputy not to casually question the Department's numbers. This is important-----

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Rental Sector (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: Of course it is important to ask questions when we publish the data, but it is also important not to casually think we may have a problem with numbers.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Rental Sector (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: We publish our numbers regularly.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Rental Sector (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: We publish our numbers regularly. We think it is important that we all work from the same data. With regard to flexibility around the HAP payments, of course there is flexibility to go to an additional 20% above what the HAP allows for in terms of market rent. In Kildare, this has happened in approximately 39% of cases, and payments have gone to 14% above what was the rent at the time....

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Rental Sector (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: All of these indicators are positive in terms of increased activity.

Other Questions: Homeless Accommodation Provision (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: I express my sympathy and condolences to the family of the lady who passed away in Cork yesterday. On the night of 7 November 2017, a total of 184 individuals were recorded as sleeping rough in Dublin. As I have said previously, no person should have to sleep rough on our streets or be without shelter at any time of the year. At last September's housing summit, I emphasised the need...

Other Questions: Homeless Accommodation Provision (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: We have a crisis when it comes to homelessness and the Taoiseach has spoken about this on a number of occasions. Every time a person dies while rough sleeping I am notified. I am one of the first people to be notified about the circumstances of the death. It is a very difficult phone call to take, I can assure the Deputy of that. This is why I have made a commitment, and we are following...

Other Questions: Homeless Accommodation Provision (7 Dec 2017)

Eoghan Murphy: The Peter McVerry Trust is an excellent organisation and is one of our partner organisations, which we fund to provide services for people who are homeless. Among the new facilities we were to open before the middle of December is one in Cabra, which is run by the trust and is already open. It is a very fine facility that is going to help a number of people into sustainable long-term...