Results 11,121-11,140 of 15,555 for speaker:Eoghan Murphy

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: The Deputy knows it will go up because we are going to support people through HAP next year.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: There will be existing tenancies and new tenancies as well. People should be careful on this. If the State is paying one's rent, one's housing need is being met. That is what is happening with HAP. People are successful in HAP. I have provided reports on HAP that set out the number of exits out of HAP and the different reasons tenancies are not working out. HAP has a flexibility....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I disagree on that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: That is a different point. It is not sustainable to rely on HAP for our social housing supports, as we are doing at the moment. That is different from suggesting we are not meeting people's housing needs. I heard that there was a good programme on the repair and lease scheme the other night. I did not see it, but I understand it covered some properties I have inspected. The scheme is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I do not.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I ask the Deputy to ask me more questions.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I do not know. We are in the middle of a very serious crisis. It is fundamentally linked to a lack of houses being built but the building of new homes is ramping up. As I stated in the Dáil earlier this week, the increase in the number of families presenting as homeless will continue. It continued to increase in August but was slightly down on July, which is to be welcomed.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: If I may, I will continue to reply to the Deputy's open-ended question.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: We must continue to be fully committed to finding solutions for such families who are, through no fault of their own, presenting. The crisis is linked to events in the private residential sector, which is why I strengthened controls in that area, fundamental issues of supply and issues such as short-term lets which are taking away from the long-term letting market. We must continue to drive...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: It depends on how one defines a housing crisis. One might define it as having families in emergency accommodation. Very regrettably, there will be families in emergency accommodation for quite some time to come because we must build houses or find houses on the rental market for them. At the same time, we must strengthen the rental market to try to prevent from people falling into...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: Deputy Barry is quoting the Minister for Education and Skills out of context. That comment was made in the context of the jobs plan. When Fine Gael entered office, we stated that we had a five-year programme to fix jobs in our economy. There was a structural problem in the economy after coming out of the crisis years. We are still dealing with the legacy of those years in our banking and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I do not need to imagine such a situation. Every week I meet people who are at the coalface of this crisis and suffering because of it. I meet them because I am the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government and have responsibility for fixing the crisis.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I am answering the Deputy's question. If he wishes to engage in false theatrics, that is his decision. I will just answer his question. I know that people are suffering. That is why we are trying to help them. The Deputy is incredibly wrong if he thinks that in 2011 people were predicting that we would be where we now are. If he thinks-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: In 2012, house prices were still falling, plunging hundreds of thousands of people into negative equity. We had 3,000 ghost estates. We had a massive deficit which we had to correct to get us to a stable state. If the Government proposed borrowing billions of euro at that time - which it would not have been able to do - to build housing, it would not have lasted in office. In 2014, we...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I have a summary of the survey that was conducted which I can distribute to members after the meeting because I asked for copies of it to be printed. The Deputy will recall that in February or March I was concerned by the high number of what were considered to be new presentations over that period. When we made a deeper dive with the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, we encountered this...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I have that in the surveys. In the examples of March and April, it was approximately 800 people and we did not know when those errors had occurred or when individuals had been incorrectly categorised. These were people in their own homes as renters who never went into emergency accommodation-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I am trying to explain it to the Deputy. If he wants to-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: If the Deputy wants to carry out this act and play it up for the cameras that is fine. I will answer the question as the Deputy asked it. These were people who never left their own homes and who were never in emergency accommodation. As a result, they should not have been counted as being in emergency accommodation. When I discovered that, I questioned how much more of this was happening....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: Did the Deputy get the number earlier when I made my opening statement?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I gave the Deputy the number. Did he not get it? The recategorisation survey summary indicated that 741 people had been identified who were in homes and who were counted as being in emergency accommodation when that was not the case. That is in addition to the recategorisation errors that were discovered in March and April. I have a survey summary which is to be published because I...