Results 2,141-2,160 of 15,555 for speaker:Eoghan Murphy

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: I thank the Deputy. He is most welcome to this morning's session of the committee. The figures for April are just out. As the Deputy pointed out, they have increased, which is very disappointing. However, we continue to increase the stock of social housing. We continue to see housing delivery generally across the economy ramping up quite significantly and sustainably, which is important...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: It is important when having these conversations that we stick to the facts and try to step away from broad or brushstroke representations of something that are not exactly the truth. The Deputy is very welcome to the committee but he was not here earlier when I answered some of the initial questions he posed. I will go back over them. This has been a very good working committee over the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: He has not yet allowed me to answer one question.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: Rebuilding Ireland is a work in progress and it is a five-year plan. It is working and I can say that because of the increases we are seeing in the supply of new homes. There has been an increase in the number of new builds this year in the first quarter, and there is evidence for this from the Central Statistics Office, independent of the Department, relating to new buildings completed and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: The published guidelines are quite clear and were welcomed by many sectors, including architects and others, as providing another piece in the new housing sector we are building. Looking at the tens of thousands of new homes to be built over the next 12 months, easily less than 1% will be for co-living. This is not about replacing homes or apartments with co-living but making a small...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: I thank the Deputy for the questions. As I said earlier, we have seen an increase in the past month of 73 in emergency accommodation and we have seen a decrease of four families and also a decrease of 27 children. These are small decreases but decreases nonetheless. The numbers go up and down each month in different categories and in different parts of the country. That is why I have said...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: Personalising this to me is not going to help one family struggling in housing insecurity today or one young couple who are trying to buy a home to pay their rent or pay their bills. The Deputy might be better off trying to bring forward solutions that will get the support of other colleagues in this House. If he can, they will be supported by the Government because we are a minority. The...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: In response, I will again give the answer I have just given.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: I assume from that question that the Deputy believes he should be in power. I would love to see his ambitious programme of 100 to 200 different actions under a cohesive, progressive piece of work that will do more than what we are doing now. Where is his coalition of people? Where is his coalition of ideas? What he was saying in asking that question was that he believes he will do a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: There are more than 10,378 people who are homeless. That number is the number in emergency accommodation. It does not count the people who are sleeping rough because that is a whole separate challenge.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: These are people who are not in any type of emergency accommodation and that number has fallen, which is welcome. There are a number of people who are facing a very challenging situation and there are, of course, people who are in housing insecurity and who do not know where is the next place they are going to live should they get served a notice to quit. There are also people who have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: I thank Deputy Ó Broin. I am just taking a final note of his questions. I thank him for relaying that information to me from the school students. I could not find a Twitter handle to tweet them. Perhaps they are not on Twitter. I have invited students into the Department from time to time to present on various projects they have done. I am happy to have these students come in and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: That was the last question to answer in that round.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: I thank the Senator. With regard to homelessness and the difficulties facing individuals, there are a number of different layers. I said that I had an engagement with the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Regina Doherty, and we have raised it with the inter-agency group that I had set up in 2017. It has also been raised at a special meeting we have with the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: The Deputy refers to 2021 as the date for what?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: At the end of 2021 and no more gas boilers?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: I never said Deputy Ó Broin should not criticise me. He should not try to claim he is not trying to personalise this issue to me when he spends more of his time producing massive posters and billboards with my face on them and driving them around town-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: No. That is not what the Deputy is doing.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: It is not.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (29 May 2019)

Eoghan Murphy: The Deputy is trying to personalise the crisis we have in homelessness to me rather than focusing on some of the important improvements happening or some of the changes that should be pursued. Even when I talk about why the changes Deputy Ó Broin suggests cannot be pursued, why they would not work and why they would have a displacement effect and could actually make things worse, he...