Results 9,121-9,140 of 11,114 for speaker:Damien English

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: I thank Deputy Durkan for his positive comments on the progress made by the Government on housing developments and the importance of whoever is in the next Government to continue to build on that success over the past couple of years. We all say there is no doubt there were not enough houses built in the past couple of years. That is what Deputy Durkan is saying. There are still not...

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: I am glad we have a chance to discuss this matter again. We have had a few briefing sessions with our departmental officials on the matter, and the Deputy has probably had much discussion with Seán Armstrong, who is one of our leading people in this area. There is a commitment within the Department to work in this area. As the Deputy will know, we are involved in an EU working group,...

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: There were two points and I will address the first comment first. It is utterly unfair to say officials in my Department are involved in spin. They are not. It is factual to say-----

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: Spin Féin. Very often people refer to spin but when one is in government and answering parliamentary questions or other questions here, one cannot engage in spin. The Opposition can get away with it but the Government actually cannot. For Deputy Duffy to say officials are engaged in spin is wrong. He has been at meetings with the officials. To be clear, at EU level, a framework...

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: They understand it and know it very well. In conversations the Deputy might want to speak about something different but these people know what they are talking about. It is not fair to the reputation of those people for the Deputy to have said what he did. I wanted to correct that. We all recognise the importance of investment in public transport and overall planning. The national...

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: I am sorry for taking up time but this is important. The current study did not recommend the rail line going ahead, although I would have liked it to do so. I hope the new one will recommend a Navan rail line and then the wording can be changed in the regional plan. The wording was wrong and members knew that. They were being a little clever.

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: It is wrong to say the Minister was blocking this.

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: There were four main questions. I will give the Deputy a short answer; we can talk about it further afterwards. There is approximately €3 billion set aside to reach the retrofitting targets set out in the national development plan. The climate plan aims to retrofit a minimum of 500,000 houses with that funding. This includes social and private housing. As to whether that will be...

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: I have a figure for 2019. From memory, I believe it was greater than 4,000 in respect of local authority houses. I do not have the figures for the scheme overall as it is operated by a different Department. From the point of view of social housing, I believe it was greater than 4,000 but I stand to be corrected. I will get the exact figure for the Deputy; I have it somewhere in my notes....

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: It is happening in very rare cases, to be honest. The majority of housing we are building now has an A2 rating and it would be hard to achieve the A2 rating with an over-reliance on fossil fuels. The majority are not relying on fossil fuels and we are certainly discouraging it for the future. The statistics show in general that 45% of housing is now using heat pumps compared to 4% a couple...

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: First, I wish to correct the answer I gave earlier about the number of social housing units. It was almost 4,500 in 2018. It was 4,453 at a cost of €13 million. In 2019, it was 3,763. The 2020 figures are much less as one would expect but hopefully they will get much better before the year is out. The figures for 2017 were 5,400. There has been a fair bit of improvement. The...

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: That is not the way we ran it.

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: I will try to answer the Deputy's questions as quickly as I possibly can. On the last point, I totally agree with a pay-as-you-save scheme for the retrofits. That could be run by the State or some energy companies offer the same thing as well. A retrofit target task force has been set up across all the different Departments looking at how best we use the allocation of €3 billion...

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: The one question that Deputy Boyd-Barrett asked me to agree with related to the extra protections that were given during the Covid-19 emergency under the legislation brought in here in March that the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, prepared and brought through the Houses here on evictions, rent increases and so on. The current arrangement can end in June, the Minister will deal with it at...

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: I must check the answer I gave Deputy Murphy to that parliamentary question. I understand the people who have raised these concerns with the Deputy and I have met them myself over the years as well.

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: I see the clock. To be clear, every planning decision on every site must be judged individually by planners at both a local level and that of An Bord Pleanála.

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: I am trying to give the Deputy the answer. She took four minutes to ask the question and now she wants me to answer "Yes" or "No" in ten seconds. She is not going to get that. Planning is about interpretation of the planning laws and making a decision site by site. To achieve-----

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: The Deputy had four minutes to talk and I have listened-----

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: It is unusual now. To be clear, I have listened to this contribution on more occasions than just today. I want to make it clear when it comes to density of sites. People very often assume-----

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development: Statements (Resumed) (10 Jun 2020)

Damien English: Each site has to be judged differently, be it in Wexford, Carlow, Cork, Meath or Dublin, and I am conscious that the guidelines that are set-----