Results 1-20 of 281 for speaker:Rory Hearne

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Housing Schemes (1 Jul 2025)

Rory Hearne: We supported the extension of RPZs but not the increase in rents. We did not support that.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Private Partnerships (1 Jul 2025)

Rory Hearne: 5. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the reason he decided to withdraw funding for social housing PPP bundles shovel ready this week; and the measures he will take to ensure the 3,000 social homes planned as PPPs are going to be delivered in the original timeframe. [36246/25]

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Private Partnerships (1 Jul 2025)

Rory Hearne: The Minister will be well aware that he and his Department decided to withdraw funding for up to 500 social homes that were due to be delivered through public-private partnerships. Will he set out the rationale that underpins that decision and give detail on it? How many value for money assessments were undertaken before the final decision was made? Will he outline the measures to ensure...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Private Partnerships (1 Jul 2025)

Rory Hearne: It has confounded and upset many people in communities where these social housing projects were due to be delivered. Two are in my constituency, Ballymun and Whitehall. These areas have high levels of social housing need. It is deeply upsetting and disappointing. Can the Minister guarantee they will be delivered according to the original planned timeframe? I wrote my PhD and a book 14...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Private Partnerships (1 Jul 2025)

Rory Hearne: The Minister did not answer how many value for money assessments were undertaken before the final decision was made. How was it let get to this point where he now says it is too expensive? Public-private partnerships involve lifetime maintenance costs and not just the delivery cost. I have been heavily critical of this model of delivery of social housing. The Minister still has not...

Review of Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004: Statements (1 Jul 2025)

Rory Hearne: The failure to implement key parts of the EPSEN Act shows that, while we remain a republic that has a proclamation that sets out to cherish all children equally, we are a republic of inequality when it comes to children with additional needs and children from disadvantaged backgrounds. They are not getting the education they have a constitutional right to and all the broad elements that...

Legislative and Structural Reforms to Accelerate Housing Delivery: Motion [Private Members] (25 Jun 2025)

Rory Hearne: The housing crisis is no longer a crisis; it is a social catastrophe. It is an emergency, as the Government has accepted. However, Government actions - cutting key housing projects, suspending funding and gutting homelessness prevention schemes - tell a very different story. Instead of rising to meet this catastrophe, the Government is failing time and time again. That is because its...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Schemes (25 Jun 2025)

Rory Hearne: 116. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of units provided under the CAS for care leavers scheme in 2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34751/25]

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Schemes (25 Jun 2025)

Rory Hearne: 117. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the funding provided for the CAS for care leavers scheme in 2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34752/25]

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (24 Jun 2025)

Rory Hearne: I will raise an issue I have highlighted here before. We know of the growing need and demand for co-educational Educate Together schools. One such school in my own constituency is Clonturk Community College in Dublin 9. It is a co-educational Educate Together school. It is a fantastic school with over 1,000 students. My eldest son attended the school and had a great experience there....

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (24 Jun 2025)

Rory Hearne: Not true.

Committee on Public Petitions and the Ombudsmen: Engagement with the Office of the Ombudsman (24 Jun 2025)

Rory Hearne: I thank the Ombudsman for his work. The housing assistance payment is an area that I have researched and done work on. The Ombudsman's findings on HAP are important in highlighting the problems with the payment. Perhaps we could discuss a few of them. The other area I want to discuss is disability and the Office of the Ombudsman's powers and resources. Mr. Deering spoke about...

Committee on Public Petitions and the Ombudsmen: Engagement with the Office of the Ombudsman (24 Jun 2025)

Rory Hearne: Even when they are in receipt of HAP they are still in housing need in relation to security of tenure and paying extra rent on top of differential rent. Mr. Deering has mentioned the issue of access to it if they have to move. There are also people with disabilities, lone parents and migrants.

Committee on Public Petitions and the Ombudsmen: Engagement with the Office of the Ombudsman (24 Jun 2025)

Rory Hearne: Perhaps Mr Deering can speak in a bit of detail about a couple of the cases that have been brought to the Office of the Ombudsman. It would be useful to indicate this housing need.

Committee on Public Petitions and the Ombudsmen: Engagement with the Office of the Ombudsman (24 Jun 2025)

Rory Hearne: It comes to the fundamental point on the inequality that has been pointed out between those in receipt of HAP and those in receipt of social housing. There are 60,000 households deemed to have their housing needs met, yet here they are facing all the issues outlined, and going to the Office of the Ombudsman, which shows it is not the case.

Committee on Public Petitions and the Ombudsmen: Engagement with the Office of the Ombudsman (24 Jun 2025)

Rory Hearne: I have a broad question about the overall approach to public services. There has been strong criticism in social policy literature down the years that the Irish welfare state and its public services show charity values rather than taking a human rights approach and perspective. Many problems stem from that. The approach we take is not that citizens are entitled to public services as a...

Committee on Public Petitions and the Ombudsmen: Engagement with the Office of the Ombudsman (24 Jun 2025)

Rory Hearne: To push Mr. Deering a bit on this, and I understand he does not want to comment directly on the legislation, if we look at it in terms of housing need, we have the housing waiting list which comprises people on the local authority waiting list and not on the transfer list. It is in the region of 58,000 households. Most of those in receipt of HAP are not on this waiting list. How we define...