Results 4,421-4,440 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: The project would have come from the local authority. Somebody was telling me about a particular design scheme going back and forth 11 times between the Departments. I launched those houses and they were fantastic so it was obviously a good thing that they went through the checks and balances that they did so that we could get these great new homes built. There is a reason we do these...

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 were people predicting in 2011? First they were predicting that NAMA had overpaid for the loans and it would make a massive loss on the €32 billion in bond holder money it was covering. They were also predicting that the ghost estate would have to be bulldozed, the recovery in jobs would take more than ten years and there would be a second bailout.

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 congratulate the Deputy on being able to see the future so well, if he was not predicting all of that. All I can remember from the left at the time was doomsaying that things were only going to get worse.

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 speaking about the context of 2011, because it is very important to remember the context in which we were in. We cannot pretend that we came to this crisis from a perfect position because we did not. We came to the current crisis in housing from a national economic crisis and a previous housing crisis. One lead directly into the other. We have to understand that.

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

Eoghan Murphy: The Deputy asked a five minute question and he will get a five minute answer.

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 all knew that the cuts that were made to the capital budget at the time would create future risks for this country, but we had to do it to protect current spending, people's salaries, their pension payments, their social welfare protections. That was a decision that was made at the time. I was a backbencher in government and I stood fully behind it. It was the right decision to make...

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 just answered the Deputy's question. What else did the Deputy have in mind?

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

Eoghan Murphy: First, I am not responsible for NAMA.

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 agree with the premise of the 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: And quicker.

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 Chairman for clarifying that. It is very helpful to put things in context. I know that Deputy Boyd Barrett did not want to do that. I believe in mixed communities. That is a principle for Fine Gael building into the future. We want to build sustainable mixed communities. We do not want to divide or segregate people. We want to unite and support them. That is what we are...

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 Deputy. I will address the recategorisation summary which I received earlier today and which has been published. The report says that 741 individuals were recategorised. It outlines the parts of the country where that has happened. I do not know exactly when it happened. I have said this before when this issue has arisen and in regard to the collection of homeless numbers in...

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 have a list of these homes. In certain cases they are individual homes, so if I provided a list the public would be able to know who is living there. When someone has a place to live for two years with their own door and their own key, they are in a home. That is not a person in an emergency.

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 visited a number of other locations but not Tallaght Cross. From my understanding it is not a hub. It is not a precarious tenancy at all. The landlord is the local authority. It is an arrangement with Túath. People there are in their own homes and are going to be in their own homes for quite some time.

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 got a summary of the report. I did not see the actual data set or spreadsheet.

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. I know the Deputy wants to speak to facts, but I do not actually have the facts on that.

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

Eoghan Murphy: This emphasis on permanent tenancies might be a bit of a misdirection. Often the people who are actually in those homes the Deputy has identified are in more secure living arrangements than people in the private rental sector. They will never exit those arrangements and move into homelessness. They will never find themselves in emergency accommodation, because the local authority's duty of...

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

Eoghan Murphy: One of the first meetings I had as Minister was with the Attorney General. I said I needed to get a shortcut in procurement law. I have gone to him twice and I have been told that we cannot do this. That is his advice based on European Union procurement law and I have to accept it. We have put procurement frameworks in place.

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

Eoghan Murphy: No. Because this crisis was of such significance I wanted to park procurement law. I tested this with the Attorney General. I asked if I could suspend procurement law if we declared an emergency. The answer was "No". The emergency had to be akin to a natural disaster.

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 have set up the under the Office of Government Procurement, OGP, a mini procurement framework, particularly around rapid build, where we pre-procure a panel and then say to the local authorities, use rapid and use this panel. We are putting in place - if it has not already been put in place - a new one for multi-storey rapid build.