Results 10,001-10,020 of 25,999 for speaker:Darragh O'Brien

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Agency (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: The Housing Agency provides a central support service which assesses applications for the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan on behalf of local authorities and makes recommendations to the authorities to approve or refuse applications. I have asked the Agency to confirm the average turnaround time for applications to be assessed. The average turnaround time (from date received to date returned...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Assistance Payment (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme plays a vital role in housing eligible families and individuals. At the end of Q2 2020, almost 79,000 HAP tenancies had been set-up since the scheme commenced, of which there were more than 56,500 households actively in receipt of HAP support and over 32,000 separate landlords and agents providing accommodation to households supported by the...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Traveller Accommodation (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: My Department publishes a quarterly Social Housing Construction Status Report, which provides information on the status of many of the various social housing new build projects underway nationally. The report includes details of schemes being progressed by the local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies. A dedicated budget is in place to fund the delivery of Traveller-specific...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Data (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: The Serviced Sites Fund (SSF) grant funds the cost of key enabling infrastructure requirements that will help unlock publicly-owned lands for the delivery thereafter of affordable homes to buy or rent. Where an affordability challenge has been identified by a local authority together with a viability to deliver more affordable homes, the fund sub-vents the cost of facilitating...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: As an initiative of the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (LIHAF) was primarily designed to support housing supply by funding the provision of public off-site infrastructure to relieve critical infrastructure blockages and enable housing developments to be built on key sites at scale. 30 projects received final LIHAF...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Land Development Agency (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: In September 2018, the Land Development Agency was established on an interim basis by statutory instrument under the Local Government Services (Corporate Bodies) Act 1971, as amended. A General Scheme of the Bill to establish the LDA as a commercial state body was approved by Government for publication, consideration for pre-legislative scrutiny and priority drafting in July 2019. The...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Social and Affordable Housing (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: Housing First enables homeless individuals with high levels of complex needs to obtain permanent secure accommodation with the provision of intensive housing and health supports to help them maintain their tenancies. The National Implementation Plan for Housing First, published in September 2018, which puts the programme on a national footing, is designed to provide this response, by...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Youth Homelessness Strategy (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: Supporting individuals and families facing homelessness is a key Government priority. The Programme for Government "Our Shared Future" commits to reducing and preventing homelessness and provides detail on how the Government will approach this challenge. Upon my appointment as Minister, I established a High Level Homelessness Taskforce, to provide a forum for engagement with key...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Planning Issues (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I propose to take Questions Nos. 164 and 165 together. Section 35 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended (the Act), which relates to refusal of planning permission for past failures, enables planning authorities to refuse an application for planning permission to those responsible for a previous development where it is satisfied that an applicant, a partnership of which the...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Rent Pressure Zones (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: The Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) was established as an independent statutory body under the Residential Tenancies Acts 2004-2020, to operate a national tenancy registration system and to facilitate the resolution of disputes between landlords and tenants. Additional powers and functions were conferred on the RTB by provisions in the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) 2019 Act. The...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Electric Vehicles (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: The EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (2018/844/EU) requires Member States to ensure that appropriate infrastructure is installed in all new residential buildings and non-residential buildings, as well as those buildings with more than 10 parking spaces, for the purpose of enabling the installation at a later stage of charging points for electric vehicles (EVs) in such...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Traveller Accommodation (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: My colleague Peter Burke TD, Minister of State for Planning and Local Government, will be responsible for Traveller accommodation and the formal process to delegate the functions is underway.

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Planning Issues (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I propose to take Questions Nos. 169 and 181 together. I am aware of concerns in relation to the matter raised. This matter is now, I understand, the subject of planning enforcement action and legal proceedings by Dublin City Council and I am precluded from further comment on it. With regard to the safeguarding of protected structures, Part IV of the Planning and Development Act 2000...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I propose to take Questions Nos. 170 and 171 together. The Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (LIHAF) and the Capital Infrastructure and Affordability Unit fall within the Housing Delivery Division of my Department, which is one of the core business areas of my Department. LIHAF has been administered within the Capital Infrastructure Unit of my Department since March 2019. It...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Planning Issues (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: In light of the impacts of the Covid-19 emergency, the Government, on 29 March 2020, made an Order under section 251A of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended (the Act), which resulted in the extension of time for a range of specified or appropriate periods and timelines in the Planning Acts and associated planning regulations. Further orders were signed on 16 April 2020 and 9 May...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Commercial Rates (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I propose to take Questions Nos. 173 and 183 together. Local authorities have a statutory obligation to levy rates on any property used for commercial purposes. An initial three-month waiver of rates for businesses forced to close business due to COVID-19, was announced in May. In order to enhance the supports available for enterprise, and in recognition of the fact that not only were...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Pyrite Remediation Programme (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: The Defective Concrete Blocks Grant Scheme is underpinned by regulations made under Sections 2 and 5 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1979, with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, to provide for a grant scheme of financial assistance to support affected homeowners in the counties of Donegal and Mayo to carry out the necessary remediation works to...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Planning Issues (13 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: My Department has responsibility for the regulation of the foreshore under the Foreshore Act 1933, as amended. Foreshore is the shore and seabed between High Water Mark and the territorial seas (12 nautical miles from the shore). It is not clear from the question where the proposed development will occur, therefore two options will need to be considered: - In accordance with...

Financial Resolutions 2020 - Financial Resolution No. 7: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: In their budget speeches yesterday my colleagues, the Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputies Donohoe and Michael McGrath, confirmed this Government's clear commitment, as stated in the programme for Government, Our Shared Future, to the State placing a much greater emphasis on directly building new social and affordable housing. Budget 2021 has provided the...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Planning Issues (14 Oct 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I propose to take Questions Nos. 134 and 135 together. In light of the impacts of the Covid-19 emergency, the Government, on 29 March 2020, made an Order under section 251A of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended (the Act), which resulted in the extension of time for a range of specified or appropriate periods and timelines in the Planning Acts and associated planning...