Results 481-500 of 15,555 for speaker:Eoghan Murphy

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Departmental Reports (13 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: Following engagement between the European Commission and my Department regarding the European Court of Justice ruling in the "Flemish Decree" case, a working group was established to review and, where necessary, recommend changes to the 2005 Planning Guidelines on Sustainable Rural Housing, issued under section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended. The working group...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Departmental Offices (13 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: My Department does not have offices in the locations referred to by the Deputy.

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: With regard to public land being only for public housing, some of the sites we have as public land are huge. For example, the Central Mental Hospital site in Dundrum is massive. I do not think it is fair that the people who would not be able to avail of a particular scheme would not be able to buy a new home that might be built there. As many as 2,500 new homes could be on that great site...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: I thank the Deputy for his questions. On the quality of emergency accommodation, we brought in a new quality standards framework last summer, which was put together with the NGOs and local authorities and rolled out across Dublin. It is now to become the national standard. What we have seen in this crisis, because we have decongregated heavily congregated settings, is outcomes for...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: I thank the Deputy for his contribution and his questions. We have used every mechanism available to us to try to increase the number of new homes being built. That is the reason we spent more money last year than had been spent as a State in any of the previous years, and that includes the boom years when we were building far too many houses. It shows the scale at which delivery is now...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: I agree with the Deputy. I have a real fear as to what might be happening or what will happen in the commercial leasing sector as we continue in this emergency period. Unfortunately, we are not able to go out and live the lives we used to live, and that might have an impact on businesses in their ability to stay afloat during this emergency period or even get back on their feet once the...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: I thank the Deputy for those follow-up questions. There are opportunities now to open up parts of the country that we feared might have been closed forever. Those opportunities are not the result of the emergency alone. The national planning framework that we agreed included that sort of spatial planning and getting people back to parts of the country that we feared were, and indeed were,...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: I congratulate Deputy Guirke on his maiden speech. Time was when a Deputy might go for a few pints after a maiden speech, but unfortunately it will not happen, not today. Hopefully in the future the Deputy will get that opportunity. The social housing waiting lists have been falling. They have fallen to below 70,000 from above 90,000 over the course of Rebuilding Ireland. However, we...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: I thank the Deputy for those questions. Deputy Feighan is welcome back to the Dáil Chamber. I am sure he does not miss the Seanad - I will withdraw that remark in case it is misinterpreted. Deputy Feighan asked about local authority housing. Not all home activity is on site at the moment. At the end of the year some 6,500 houses were active on sites throughout the country. We...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: I might also ask the Deputy to give a commitment to me that if I am in opposition and he is in government that he will engage with the Opposition on the ESRI report on rent arrears.

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: The Deputy is very kind. There will be a rent arrears problem in the State. It is not yet clear how big it is which is why the ESRI is doing this work. I have had a number of engagements with both the tenant representative organisations and the landlord representative organisations. It is in both sides' interests that we can manage this problem when it arises, we just need to know the...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: I thank the Deputy for those questions. I will work back through them. Regarding rates and the waiver of same, further funding will be required because some businesses will not be able to reopen after the three-month period because of the plans we have put in place, so they will continue to be able to avail of the waiver. In advance of that, an additional amount of money will have to be...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: Yes.

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: I might need the time to reply to the questions from the Deputies. As we come out of the lockdown period we can look through the five phases and the important dates where housing is concerned. The first is 18 May when we hope to see the construction sites opening again. The Deputy is correct that it must happen in a safe way. The new standard for the operation of house building sites has...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: Yes. We also do not want any stigmas being associated with certain types of housing. We have standard designs for the internal layout of homes which can be taken off the shelf by local authorities and we have a draft document that was circulated before the end of last year on the external layout, which would be how many sites one might be able to get in a hectare, how much green space would...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: The work of the inter-agency group that I set up in September 2017 was meant to be the vehicle to tie all of the different Departments together, but bureaucratic walls unfortunately maintained regardless of that. They came down very quickly in the crisis and that is why the work has been so successful. It is a model that must continue into the future. I know the Deputy is planning on...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: I very much welcome the opportunity to discuss with colleagues today the many issues that fall under my Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. I recognise that many people might want to focus on the issue of housing in particular because it is so important but I would like to speak, if I have the time, to issues that have happened around the planning area, local government,...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: The short-term letting, as the Deputy said, is absolutely crucial, as is the further regulation and keeping as many units of accommodation as we can.

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: Deputy McNamara is very welcome back to the Dáil. I have not had an opportunity to speak to him either. I agree with the point on the difficulty in bringing derelict homes up to the right standard for living in. We can make changes here, of course we can. We need to be careful that in making those changes we are then not criticised for lowering standards, but it makes absolutely...

Covid-19 (Housing, Planning and Local Government): Statements (7 May 2020)

Eoghan Murphy: I thank the Deputy for his questions. No doubt there will be lessons that Departments can share with others. We have experts working in health, in homelessness, in care provision, in different types of treatments, and in the provision of food, all of these things. It is one of the benefits we have in the public sector, in that there is real expertise there and they really have led the way....