Results 15,961-15,980 of 26,293 for speaker:Darragh O'Brien

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Local Authorities (11 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: The Department of Transport, as the parent Department of the Shannon Group, have the lead role in the transfer of heritage sites from Shannon Group to relevant local authorities. In order to secure the future of the heritage assets and employees, Shannon Group has had extensive engagement with the relevant local authorities since early 2021. Shannon Heritage ended their management contracts...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Provision (11 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: My Department's role in relation to homelessness involves the provision of a national framework of policy, legislation and funding to underpin the role of housing authorities in addressing homelessness at local level. Statutory responsibility in relation to the provision of homeless services rests with individual housing authorities. My Department does not fund any homeless service directly...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Departmental Properties (11 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: My Department provides breastfeeding employees with access to flexible spaces across all our office locations including the National Parks and Wildlife Service. These spaces include wellbeing rooms and rest rooms. Each one is shielded from view and is free from intrusion by co-workers or the public and is provided with appropriate furniture. Although currently demand does not exist for these...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Judicial Reviews (13 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: The information requested is being compiled and will be forwarded in accordance with Standing Orders.

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: State Bodies (13 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: A Framework for the future delivery of water services was identified with unions at the Workplace Relations Commission on 24 June 2022. My Department also hosted parallel engagement with unions on a number of policy matters of relevance to workers in the context of the overall water transformation programme, including a referendum on water ownership. A paper entitled Irish Water...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Schemes (13 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: The Government's Housing for All strategy commits to delivering a total of 18,000 Cost Rental homes over the period to 2030. Significant funding has been secured and is being made available to support delivery of Cost Rental by Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), Local Authorities and by the Land Development Agency (LDA). Delivery will increase incrementally, to an average of 2,000 Cost...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Schemes (13 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: My Department provides Unit Cost Ceilings (UCCs) to each local authority as a key benchmark for the development and costing of new build social housing. As UCCs are based on previously tendered social housing construction projects, they act as useful guide costs for local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies against which to benchmark their projects. A copy of these UCC’s in...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Departmental Correspondence (13 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: The acquisition of properties for social housing is a matter for each local authority. Local authorities currently have delegated sanction, which allows them to acquire any property up to the upper acquisition threshold of the acquisition cost guidelines, without having to seek Department approval. These guidelines were issued to local authorities last May. Should the local authority...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Defective Building Materials (13 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: Following on from the Government decision of the 30 November 2021 in respect of the enhanced Defective Concrete Blocks Grant scheme, the Government approved the Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks Bill 2022 on 21 June and the Bill passed through both Houses of the Oireachtas and was subsequently signed into law by the President on the 23 July, 2022. The...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Policy (13 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: I recently approved changes to the social housing income eligibility bands. From 1 October, five local authorities - Carlow, Clare, Galway County, Laois and Westmeath - moved from Band 3 to Band 2. Accordingly, the baseline income eligibility threshold for these areas increased from €25,000 to €30,000. A table setting out the details of the three bands and the limits currently...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Defective Building Materials (13 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: In response to the difficulties that homeowners are facing due to the presence of deleterious material in their houses, my Department has put a number of measures in place to support homeowners including providing considerable financial assistance to remediate their homes. These include the Pyrite Remediation Scheme and the Defective Concrete Blocks Scheme, both of which are underpinned by...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Schemes (13 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) is a form of social housing support available for people who have a long-term housing need. Any household assessed as eligible for social housing is immediately eligible for HAP. Eligible households can source their own accommodation in the private rental sector which should be within the HAP rent limits provided to them by the local authority. The HAP...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Rental Sector (13 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: The Residential Tenancies Acts 2004-2022 (RTA) regulate the landlord-tenant relationship in the private rented sector and set out the rights and obligations of landlords and tenants. The Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) was established as an independent statutory body under the Acts to operate a national tenancy registration system and to resolve disputes between landlords and tenants....

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Schemes (13 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: The Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (LIHAF) is a scheme which funds the building of public infrastructure by local authorities. Its objective is to provide public off-site infrastructure to relieve critical infrastructure blockages to housing delivery. This enables the accelerated delivery of housing on key development sites in Dublin and in urban areas of high demand. LIHAF was...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Policy (12 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: I propose to take Questions Nos. 61 and 72 together. I have recently approved proposals to scope and develop options for a revised or new social housing income eligibility model. This work will commence shortly under the aegis of the Housing Agency who have been tasked with commissioning it and I expect that the work will complete by the end of 2022. Pending completion of this work, I have...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Departmental Staff (12 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth continues to lead the initial humanitarian response, including the provision of accommodation and related supports, for persons arriving in Ireland from the conflict in Ukraine. My Department is supporting the wider, cross-Government response in a number of ways, which involves the Housing, Local Government, Planning and...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Defective Building Materials (12 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: References to “red”, “amber” and “green” as originally referred to in the Report of the Pyrite Panel (June 2012) and I.S. 398-1:2013 have been removed in I.S. 398-1:2017, which was introduced in August, 2017 and replaced its predecessor. I.S. 398-1:2017 - Reactive pyrite in sub-floor hardcore material – Part 1: Testing and Categorisation...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Departmental Data (12 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: Housing for All, is the Government’s plan to increase the supply of housing to an average of 33,000 per year over the next decade. This includes the delivery of 90,000 social homes by 2030. Housing for All is supported by an investment package of over €4bn per annum, through an overall combination of €12bn in direct Exchequer funding, €3.5bn in funding through the...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Water Pollution (12 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: Since 1 January 2014, Irish Water has statutory responsibility for all aspects of water services planning, delivery and operation at national, regional and local level, including investment in wastewater treatment plants and returning wastewater safely to the environment in an efficient and sustainable manner. My Department has no operational function in this matter. It may be helpful to...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Local Authorities (12 Oct 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: I propose to take Questions Nos. 66 and 67 together. Local authorities are legally responsible for the management and maintenance of their housing stock under section 58 of the Housing Act 1966. Local authorities also have a legal obligation to ensure that all of their tenanted properties are compliant with the provisions of the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations, 2019....