Results 19,741-19,760 of 27,080 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Affordable Housing Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I move amendment No. 1: In page 6, between lines 27 and 28, to insert the following: “and shall be passed by both houses of the Oireachtas before being signed into law”. Let us be clear that we all want to see genuinely affordable housing being delivered. However, one of the many problems with this Bill is that a whole range of the key issues which would ensure we would...

Affordable Housing Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister and the Government know that our big concern and the concern of a lot of people out there is that affordable housing may turn out not to be affordable for the working people who desperately need it. People may not have heard it on the microphones, but across the Chamber just now the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, said that it will be. I have no doubt that the Minister hopes...

Affordable Housing Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I move amendment No. 5: In page 7, to delete lines 27 and 28. As we discussed with the last group of amendments, we are happy to have arrangements with not-for-profit organisations. However, our concerns are not just ideological concerns, as the Minister regularly trots out, but concerns based on experience with what the private investors want out of property and housing and what their...

Affordable Housing Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I will try to be as brief as I can. We are not going to get to many of the key amendments to this Bill because we only have three hours to debate. That is a fact caused by the Government's guillotine. It is not necessary. We should have an opportunity to debate these amendments because this legislation is too important. Deputy Mattie McGrath made slightly personalised comments,...

Affordable Housing Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: In fact, I built council houses in Peckham in London, which I went to see recently, and they are still standing. I was delighted. They were built by Irish building contractors for whom I worked there.

Affordable Housing Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: They are still in public ownership. They were built through the model-----

Affordable Housing Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: They were built through the model by which houses should be built as against public-private partnership. I am speaking directly to the amendments.

Affordable Housing Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I know that. They are my amendments and I am speaking directly to them.

Affordable Housing Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Those houses in Peckham were built under the model by which the local authority contracts to build a certain number of public houses and then small builders and private builders come in and build them. It is not a public-private partnership. The Government is throwing mud in people's eyes and trying to create a division by suggesting we are trying to exclude the small builder from...

Affordable Housing Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I too am looking for clarification on this. There may be a slight difference of opinion with my comrades and colleagues in the Opposition on this, or there may not. This is why I want clarification from the Minister. I am very much against anything that is going to reinforce or underpin unaffordable house prices as they exist in the epicentre of the housing crisis at the moment. Any kind...

Affordable Housing Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I can certainly see the logic for why a bit of flexibility is needed in rural areas, but I believe that a bit of flexibility is required in urban areas too, depending on the need to deliver, and notwithstanding the critical importance of not reinforcing or underpinning unaffordable prices. As I said, given a stark choice between a vulture fund buying up houses and a local authority buying...

Affordable Housing Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: And to housing spokespersons who are not on the committee, if the Minister would not mind.

Affordable Housing Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I am like an honorary member.

Residential Tenancies (No. 2) Bill 2021: From the Seanad (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The 4% RPZs were a total failure. I do not doubt that this is an attempt to improve matters and hopefully it will do so somewhat. I want to flag that there should be no rent increases for tenants in the present situation or any time in the foreseeable future, particularly in the areas most affected by completely unaffordable rents. That is where the RPZs are located. Against the...

Residential Tenancies (No. 2) Bill 2021: From the Seanad (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That will not deal with it in the short term. I have mentioned the St. Helen's Court residents on multiple occasions to the Minister, the previous Minister and probably the Minister before that. They are banjaxed. They are waiting for the vulture fund that has successfully evicted them en massefrom an apartment complex and they are overholding because the eviction date has passed. They...

Education (Student and Parent Charter) Bill 2019 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed) (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I do not think she is going to be here.

Education (Student and Parent Charter) Bill 2019 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed) (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I will briefly recapitulate on a few points from yesterday and add a few points on behalf of Deputy Smith, who could not make it along. A parents and children's schools charter is not a bad idea in principle. It is a very good idea in principle to have proper grievance procedures and transparency about the expenditure of school funds and voluntary contributions, even though, frankly, they...

Written Answers — Department of Justice and Equality: Immigration Policy (8 Jul 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 302. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if she plans to include migrants who had residency prior to becoming undocumented regardless of time spent undocumented in the regularisation scheme for undocumented people in Ireland; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36934/21]

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Tax Expenditures: Discussion (24 Jun 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I thank the witnesses from the ESRI and Dr. Collins. I warmly welcome and support pretty much everything they said. I have long advocated for some of the things for which the witnesses are advocating. Tax expenditures are a shadow budget. They constitute a pretty vast realm of public money that is being spent every year and is not scrutinised in any serious way. For much of the time, we...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Tax Expenditures: Discussion (24 Jun 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I will not even take that because I have to go to the Business Committee now. My thanks to our contributors. This is such an important topic and I am pleased that we are starting to make it an issue. One particular suggestion which came from Dr. Collins was about how we up the scrutiny on tax expenditure so that these measures start to be taken as seriously and scrutinised as intensely...