Results 11,141-11,160 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: What do we do for the people who need our support when we do not have the homes built for them yet and we cannot get them built in four months time? Do we tell them to get lost or do we offer them HAP, whereby, with the help of the place finder service, they will find a home where they will be safe while we build homes at the same time? We cannot just cut off HAP and put it into building...

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

Eoghan Murphy: Some 30% of the funding from Rebuilding Ireland was redirected last year as a result of my decision to build more and increase the stock of social housing. The capital funding for local authorities will increase next year as per the programme of funding under Rebuilding Ireland. The HAP spend will go up as well because I will not abandon people who need our support. We will help them 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: I thank the Senator for his contribution and for his help during my recent visit to Clare. During that visit, we visited a number of different sites to see what is happening. It was good to see the proposals for housing there. We have been working on the tenant purchase scheme and will come to a conclusion on it very shortly. I spoke to the Minister of State, Deputy English, about it...

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 cannot direct local authorities on allocations but if the Senator has a particular case in mind, he might bring it to my attention privately. The vacant home tax was something I wanted to do when I came into office. When we looked at the detailed data ourselves, using people in the Department and local authorities who had advanced vacancy research, it was clear that it was not the...

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 will return quickly to the housing adaptation grants. Some 10,000 will be done this year but I cannot give the figure for funding for next year because it is part of budget negotiations. I apologise for that. It is not the case that I am trying to withhold the information but it is sensitive at the moment. I will work backwards through Deputy Casey's questions. In 2040 we will have...

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 project would have come from the local authority. Somebody was telling me about a particular design scheme going back and forth 11 times between the Departments. I launched those houses and they were fantastic so it was obviously a good thing that they went through the checks and balances that they did so that we could get these great new homes built. There is a reason we do these...

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

Eoghan Murphy: What were people predicting in 2011? First they were predicting that NAMA had overpaid for the loans and it would make a massive loss on the €32 billion in bond holder money it was covering. They were also predicting that the ghost estate would have to be bulldozed, the recovery in jobs would take more than ten years and there would be a second bailout.

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 congratulate the Deputy on being able to see the future so well, if he was not predicting all of that. All I can remember from the left at the time was doomsaying that things were only going to get worse.

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 speaking about the context of 2011, because it is very important to remember the context in which we were in. We cannot pretend that we came to this crisis from a perfect position because we did not. We came to the current crisis in housing from a national economic crisis and a previous housing crisis. One lead directly into the other. We have to understand 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: The Deputy asked a five minute question and he will get a five minute answer.

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 all knew that the cuts that were made to the capital budget at the time would create future risks for this country, but we had to do it to protect current spending, people's salaries, their pension payments, their social welfare protections. That was a decision that was made at the time. I was a backbencher in government and I stood fully behind it. It was the right decision to make...

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 just answered the Deputy's question. What else did the Deputy have in mind?

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

Eoghan Murphy: First, I am not responsible for NAMA.

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 agree with the premise of the 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: And quicker.

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 thank the Chairman for clarifying that. It is very helpful to put things in context. I know that Deputy Boyd Barrett did not want to do that. I believe in mixed communities. That is a principle for Fine Gael building into the future. We want to build sustainable mixed communities. We do not want to divide or segregate people. We want to unite and support them. That is what we are...

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 thank the Deputy. I will address the recategorisation summary which I received earlier today and which has been published. The report says that 741 individuals were recategorised. It outlines the parts of the country where that has happened. I do not know exactly when it happened. I have said this before when this issue has arisen and in regard to the collection of homeless numbers in...

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 have a list of these homes. In certain cases they are individual homes, so if I provided a list the public would be able to know who is living there. When someone has a place to live for two years with their own door and their own key, they are in a home. That is not a person in an emergency.

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 visited a number of other locations but not Tallaght Cross. From my understanding it is not a hub. It is not a precarious tenancy at all. The landlord is the local authority. It is an arrangement with Túath. People there are in their own homes and are going to be in their own homes for quite some time.

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 got a summary of the report. I did not see the actual data set or spreadsheet.