Results 41-60 of 15,634 for speaker:Eoin Ó Broin

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: This is the second Revised Estimate since December but it is the third capital announcement that the Minister has made. The challenge here is that the total output of new-build social homes last year funded under this subhead was 7,860. A very large proportion of the 1,500 acquisitions would have come from that fund as well, although not all of them because some of them would have been...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: Does the Minister mean a carry-over and that he will use less of the money than what was allocated?

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: The Minister is confident that he is going to deliver the targets. Does he accept that there is not enough money in the pot right now to fund all of those, based on last year's outturn or output? If he is to deliver the 10,000 homes, he will need extra cash. That is a fair assumption, is it not?

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: It is not so much a question of the drawdown. We know the number of units that were delivered under that subhead last year and we know the cost of those. We know that the cost of both acquisitions and new builds has increased. If the Minister is going to deliver 2,140 extra new builds this year over last year, he is going to need more than an extra €83 million. I am not having a...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: We know there was very strong resistance from the Department of Finance and the Department of public expenditure and reform to the allocation of both this additional Revised Estimate and the one earlier in the year. We know that because of freedom of information documentation that I received from the Minister's Department. It seems that it was quite significant in that, according to the FOI...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: But the Minister did have to go to the Taoiseach and the Taoiseach did have to intervene. We know that from documents from the Minister's officials. I am not complaining about that. The more money that goes into public housing, I support, but there does seem to have been a very significant level of resistance within elements of the public service, possibly supported by their Ministers....

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: Was it not the case that the housing plan essentially provided a form of multi-annual funding in the sense that the outgoing Government committed to a set amount of expenditure over the lifetime of the plan? There are annual targets and we know that local authorities and AHBs must work on multi-annual cycles, so everybody had visibility on the number of units that were to be funded and the...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: Does the Minister accept that the delay in having that funding approved, and us only getting the Revised Estimates now, is going to impact on the delivery pipeline of the local authorities and approved housing bodies?

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: Financial certainty has only been provided in July and now in October. That is going to slow down the pipeline that would have otherwise been much further advanced if this had been settled in the Revised Estimates Volume last December.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: The Minister does not think any of those delays will have in any way delayed the delivery of those units, in some cases by six, 12 or 18 months, because the Government has delayed agreeing a total amount of money from last December through to October? Does the Minister think there was no delay as a result of that? When AHBs and councils are telling us that that has caused them a delay in...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: I am out of time, Chair.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: I want to go back to the detailed Revised Estimates Volume that was laid before the House on Tuesday this week. I want to refer to it to make things easier. One of the things that is helpful about the Estimates for social housing is that there are very clear targets. We know the target for new builds, acquisitions, leasing, HAP and RAS. We have never had clarity on the individual targets...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: That within that 6,400 total.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: They are separate to the 1,600 units. Those will not be like the ones in Shanganagh, where they are sold through the local authority but delivered by the LDA. Are these on top of the 1,600 units or are they included in it?

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: Okay, so it is a total of 1,600 affordable purchases by the local authorities and the LDA.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: So, it is 500 units on top of the 1,600 units.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: What is the figure for cost-rental units?

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: Okay.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

Eoin Ó Broin: Yes, perfect. Even in the budget book when the budget is published, there is not that level of clarity because, for example, cost-rental units are mixed in together. We have never had an official target published for the affordable purchase area, so that is really helpful. If they are published, though, and if the targets are met, the Minister could point to them and say he met them, and...