Results 10,341-10,360 of 25,999 for speaker:Darragh O'Brien

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Supports (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I visited many of the outreach centres all across Dublin. I chair the homelessness delivery task force, which is made up of many of our homeless partners such as Focus Ireland, Depaul Ireland, Dublin Simon Community, Peter McVerry Trust and many others, and we meet on a biweekly basis. Funding is not an issue. We have an issue with the funding for some of the section 10 organisations,...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Supports (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: A priority for me and for this Government is to continue the fight against homelessness. That is the reason we have put unprecedented resources into that particular area. Thankfully, even since early April this year, we have seen a continued reduction in both family and singles homelessness and in respect of children. That is a trend we want to continue. That is the reason we need to ramp...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I propose to take Questions Nos. 44 and 67 together. We took this question earlier and it could not be linked because Deputy Ó Broin's was a priority question but we actually did that. The 253 social homes were fully funded by the Department and €8.6 million or €8.7 million in the serviced sites fund was available to go towards the affordable housing. It is a...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: It is what it is.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: We have binned the non-adversarial approach and now someone asks me for unrealistic proposals. We may have just heard one but, having said that, I am interested in results and building homes. That is what we are about. I am not sure how many homes the Deputy or his ideology has built in this State. It is probably none. What we are about is delivering homes for people and for families. I...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I do not know if the Deputies are aware of the history of the site. It has been in council ownership since around 2007. It is 2020 now. When one says to just let the local authorities build it, it is 13 years later and they have not done so.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: Deputy Ó Broin's party was chair of the housing strategic policy committee in Dublin City Council-----

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: -----up until the local elections last year so he can ask Daithí Doolan and his friends there who he controls about why they did not vote for certain housing developments across the city. To get back to the Deputy's point, the Government is interested in letting local authorities build. We raised the discretionary cap to €6 million to allow local authorities to do that. That...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: The non-adversarial nature that is professed by the Deputies opposite has already broken down in advance of me receiving any proposal whatsoever regarding the Oscar Traynor Road development. What this Government will do in the budget that the Opposition voted against is use the single largest housing budget in the State's history, with €3.3 billion for housing and 12,750 new social,...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Data (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank the Deputy for raising this very important issue, which we also discussed six weeks ago. There have been, as he rightly said, a number of deaths recently of people who were either rough sleeping or accessing homeless services. Every death is a tragedy. I have already and will extend again my sympathy to their families, friends and to the service providers who get to know many of...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Data (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: No one wants to categorise people within this. All I am saying is that I used the example of that gentleman and there are others, who are people who were accessing homeless services and counted in these terrible figures and shocking statistics. That is just to simply state a fact. I chair the north Dublin regional drugs and alcohol task force and I am aware of the need to increase funding....

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Data (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I understand that.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Data (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: We are still on the question raised by Deputy Ó Broin at the moment and I know that Deputy O’Callaghan has a question on that.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Data (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: That is okay.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Data (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: That is okay. I am just asking because the Deputy has a question on a particular issue, just a couple of questions down on the list. Returning to Deputy Ó Broin’s point, we need to look at how these deaths are reported. I am going to do that and am giving a commitment here, as well as when the report is completed. The appropriate place for that is the Joint Committee on...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Home Loan Scheme (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: My Department publishes information on the overall number and value of (i) local authority loan approvals and (ii) local authority loan drawdowns. Local authority approval means that an official letter of offer has been sent to a borrower (and therefore relates to a specific property and loan amount). Figures for the first two quarters of 2020 are available on my Department's website and I...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Homeless Accommodation (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I propose to take Questions Nos. 54 and 357 together. The National Quality Standards Framework (NQSF) for homeless services is in place nationally for local authority and NGO delivered services. Local authorities carry out inspections on facilities that are not covered under the Framework. For example, The Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, that has responsibility for over 70% of all...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: The Programme for Government confirms the priority to increase the supply of social and affordable homes. In the first instance, it is a matter for housing authorities to bring forward optimum proposals for the delivery of housing on their sites maximising the potential from the suite of delivery mechanisms and Exchequer funding streams available from my Department. Supporting these...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I propose to take Questions Nos. 56 and 58 together. The Programme for Government makes clear our commitments to provide measures for good-quality housing to purchase or rent at an affordable price. In providing Capital of €468 million towards programmes that will support affordability, Budget 2021 backed up our intentions to deliver on these commitments. From this sum, €110...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: The advancement of social housing delivery on a local basis is the responsibility of each individual local authority and they seek to secure the maximum amount of social housing through a range of approaches that represent value for money, speed of delivery and that meet the needs of those on the waiting lists. The Programme for Government commits to increasing the social housing stock by...