Results 4,401-4,420 of 15,555 for speaker:Eoghan Murphy

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I ask the Deputy to ask me more questions.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I do not know. We are in the middle of a very serious crisis. It is fundamentally linked to a lack of houses being built but the building of new homes is ramping up. As I stated in the Dáil earlier this week, the increase in the number of families presenting as homeless will continue. It continued to increase in August but was slightly down on July, which is to be welcomed.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: If I may, I will continue to reply to the Deputy's open-ended question.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: We must continue to be fully committed to finding solutions for such families who are, through no fault of their own, presenting. The crisis is linked to events in the private residential sector, which is why I strengthened controls in that area, fundamental issues of supply and issues such as short-term lets which are taking away from the long-term letting market. We must continue to drive...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: It depends on how one defines a housing crisis. One might define it as having families in emergency accommodation. Very regrettably, there will be families in emergency accommodation for quite some time to come because we must build houses or find houses on the rental market for them. At the same time, we must strengthen the rental market to try to prevent from people falling into...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: Deputy Barry is quoting the Minister for Education and Skills out of context. That comment was made in the context of the jobs plan. When Fine Gael entered office, we stated that we had a five-year programme to fix jobs in our economy. There was a structural problem in the economy after coming out of the crisis years. We are still dealing with the legacy of those years in our banking and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I do not need to imagine such a situation. Every week I meet people who are at the coalface of this crisis and suffering because of it. I meet them because I am the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government and have responsibility for fixing the crisis.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I am answering the Deputy's question. If he wishes to engage in false theatrics, that is his decision. I will just answer his question. I know that people are suffering. That is why we are trying to help them. The Deputy is incredibly wrong if he thinks that in 2011 people were predicting that we would be where we now are. If he thinks-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: In 2012, house prices were still falling, plunging hundreds of thousands of people into negative equity. We had 3,000 ghost estates. We had a massive deficit which we had to correct to get us to a stable state. If the Government proposed borrowing billions of euro at that time - which it would not have been able to do - to build housing, it would not have lasted in office. In 2014, we...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I have a summary of the survey that was conducted which I can distribute to members after the meeting because I asked for copies of it to be printed. The Deputy will recall that in February or March I was concerned by the high number of what were considered to be new presentations over that period. When we made a deeper dive with the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, we encountered this...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I have that in the surveys. In the examples of March and April, it was approximately 800 people and we did not know when those errors had occurred or when individuals had been incorrectly categorised. These were people in their own homes as renters who never went into emergency accommodation-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I am trying to explain it to the Deputy. If he wants to-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: If the Deputy wants to carry out this act and play it up for the cameras that is fine. I will answer the question as the Deputy asked it. These were people who never left their own homes and who were never in emergency accommodation. As a result, they should not have been counted as being in emergency accommodation. When I discovered that, I questioned how much more of this was happening....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: Did the Deputy get the number earlier when I made my opening statement?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I gave the Deputy the number. Did he not get it? The recategorisation survey summary indicated that 741 people had been identified who were in homes and who were counted as being in emergency accommodation when that was not the case. That is in addition to the recategorisation errors that were discovered in March and April. I have a survey summary which is to be published because I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: What do we do for the people who need our support when we do not have the homes built for them yet and we cannot get them built in four months time? Do we tell them to get lost or do we offer them HAP, whereby, with the help of the place finder service, they will find a home where they will be safe while we build homes at the same time? We cannot just cut off HAP and put it into building...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: Some 30% of the funding from Rebuilding Ireland was redirected last year as a result of my decision to build more and increase the stock of social housing. The capital funding for local authorities will increase next year as per the programme of funding under Rebuilding Ireland. The HAP spend will go up as well because I will not abandon people who need our support. We will help them into...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I thank the Senator for his contribution and for his help during my recent visit to Clare. During that visit, we visited a number of different sites to see what is happening. It was good to see the proposals for housing there. We have been working on the tenant purchase scheme and will come to a conclusion on it very shortly. I spoke to the Minister of State, Deputy English, about it...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I cannot direct local authorities on allocations but if the Senator has a particular case in mind, he might bring it to my attention privately. The vacant home tax was something I wanted to do when I came into office. When we looked at the detailed data ourselves, using people in the Department and local authorities who had advanced vacancy research, it was clear that it was not the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Sep 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I will return quickly to the housing adaptation grants. Some 10,000 will be done this year but I cannot give the figure for funding for next year because it is part of budget negotiations. I apologise for that. It is not the case that I am trying to withhold the information but it is sensitive at the moment. I will work backwards through Deputy Casey's questions. In 2040 we will have...