Results 2,081-2,100 of 5,659 for speaker:Thomas Gould

Written Answers — Department of Health: Health Services (19 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: 148. To ask the Minister for Health the funding given for development of new respite services in each CHO in each of the past five years, in tabular form. [18462/23]

Written Answers — Department of Health: Health Services (19 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: 149. To ask the Minister for Health the number of applications made for respite services in each of the past five years, by CHO in tabular form. [18463/23]

Written Answers — Department of Health: Health Services (19 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: 150. To ask the Minister for Health the number of applications made for residential respite services in each of the past five years, by CHO in tabular form. [18464/23]

Department Underspend and Reduced Delivery of Affordable Housing: Motion [Private Members] (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: We all accept the Government's targets for affordable housing have been too low. Yet, yesterday's announcement of the housing statistics highlights that even with these very low figures the Government still cannot hit its targets. Affordable housing represents the only opportunity for many families to ever be able to own their own home. Yet the Government still cannot give those people the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: I understand there is a huge amount of work going on in the Department, and the work it is doing has probably never been so important. I have a couple of questions that I hope the witnesses will be able to talk me through. First, in 2022 the Department funded only 85 voids in Cork city and 2,307 nationally. The latest National Oversight and Audit Commission, NOAC, report shows that it...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: To return to the first point about the 85 voids, it is very easy to calculate how many voids come back or how many houses are returned to local authorities every year. In Cork I think the figure is about 20 a month. We are talking about the bones of 250 units a year. If Cork City Council knows that and the Department knows that, because it gets monthly reports from the chief executives,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: Realistically, and with all due respect, I became a councillor in 2009, and in the 14 years I have been a councillor and a Deputy, Cork City Council has carried out no preventative maintenance. The number one issue is, it said, that it had no funding stream from central Government. While what Ms Timmons says, therefore, might sound very credible; on the ground that is not what is happening....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: There is no security of tenure in HAP. I spoke to a lady last Friday who became homeless last Saturday because there is no security of tenure in HAP if a landlord provides the correct documentation for a person to leave. It may be a way to get people out of homelessness, but that is a double-edged sword because some people become homeless on the back of notices to quit from HAP tenancies.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: Earlier there was reference to the 19,000 units of social housing that are in the construction report as being in the pipeline. While looking at it earlier, there were just a few things that came up, and I will refer to a few examples that I found in the report. Of the 19,000, there were 18 homes in Laois on site since quarter 4 of 2018. In Waterford, 24 homes have been at stage 1 approval...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: I thank Ms Stapleton. My next question relates to the discussion we had earlier with regard to the vacant homes unit now within the Department. How many full-time staff are specifically dealing with vacancy? I raised this issue about two years ago, and again last year, so it seems like there has been great progress.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: Are they specifically dealing with vacancy and not doing three jobs?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: Does dereliction come under that unit?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: Before I go back onto dereliction, the Government brought in a vacant property tax last year of 0.3%, which I believe was a shocking and disgraceful decision. When one considers that the derelict sites levy is 7% I do not know how the 0.3% rate can be justified. If one looks at other European countries such as France, they start off with 10% of the annual yearly income and this rises to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: I would say that a rate of 0.3% would not discourage anyone when property values are increasing every year. With regard to derelict sites, should a team be put together within the Department, similar to the vacant homes unit that would specifically target dereliction, and which would tie in, in the same way that Ms Timmons has described, with the vacancy unit that is with all local authorities?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: I say this because we know from the figures that there is €12 million in outstanding derelict sites levy charges from last year. We also know for a fact that none of the local authorities are returning accurate figures for dereliction in their local authorities. Some local authorities are performing slightly better than others. This is legislation that goes back to 1990, and what we...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: The current position is we have no-one responsible for it. Call me old-fashioned. I made the point to the local authorities when they came in here that if I illegally park and I get a ticket then I must pay it. But what if I have a derelict building, as there are all over Cork city? There is a derelict building on North Main Street in the dead centre of the city that had to be secured...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: To follow on from Senator Cummins, local authorities have come here and said that the €60,000 is not enough for many local authorities to get them to buy in in the way that Waterford has bought in. While the Department is reviewing that, it is certainly something that could make a difference to get local authorities to buy in. On a point we touched on earlier, there was a story in the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: Will they be stand-alone officers? What we saw in the past, when funding was provided, was that a person would have three or four jobs, and one of them would be that job. I am talking about stand-alone personnel to deal with this.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: On staffing, we need to look at the tenantin situscheme. I came across a terrible case last Friday where a lady got a phone call at 3 p.m. to say the local authority was looking at purchasing the house. She was leaving the house on the Saturday and going into a family hub because for six months she was waiting to get onto the housing list. By the time she got onto the list, the landlord had...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (18 Apr 2023)

Thomas Gould: As I said, I came from Knocknaheeny, but I now live in Gurranabraher which is just below it. It was built 85 years ago. It was one of the old Cork Corporation social housing schemes. Why are local authorities not being mandated to deliver direct build? Why are local authorities not hiring staff and building their own? That is what we did in Cork and right across the country. We need a...