Results 6,381-6,400 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 (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: To be fair to the Minister of State, Deputy English, he made himself available to the committee on Tuesday to go through this. If members decided to attend a conference rather than being in committee to go through the exempted development regulations with the Minister of State, that is a choice for them to make. This information was laid before the House in December. I received a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: Earlier in the process. They were laid before the House in December.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: They were laid before the House in December-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: -----and they were discussed on Thursday with the Minister of State and the Deputy was not here.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: At the 11th hour.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: This is about where there is a conversion above a shop or previously vacant empty commercial space to bring it into use for people to live in. What we are exempting is the need to seek permission to change planning from commercial to residential. That is the essence of the exempted regulations. There is work being done that will come to a conclusion very shortly which will streamline the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: As long as those bona fides extend both ways, they will extend from my office to the Deputy. Claims were made about the credibility of some of the things I was doing with regard to the 2017 report, that I was reducing the targets in order to say I had almost hit them. It was an unfair assertion to make because it was not true in the context of the data that was published. If we are going...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: It should have been clear to the Deputy. It is not in the cut and thrust to put out a press statement saying the Minister should correct the Dáil record because he has misled the public on his targets by reducing them. That is not the cut and thrust.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: That is attacking credibility. We published the table just as we published them last year, with the same breakdown of categories.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I will look forward to that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I thank the Chair and Deputy Boyd Barrett for his questions. On the first point he made around the exempt regulations, enforcement of standards is key. The Department has been doing work since before I came in to improve standards around the rental sector. I refer to improving standards generally around what is being built and everything else. I do not want to do anything that is going to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: Has the Deputy seen this document?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: There is a huge amount of detail on the HAPs. It also gives a detail by local authority area. When we look at Dún Laoghaire, and usage figures around local authorities, it is 47%, 37% and 80%. Obviously, it is pointing to a particular problem in Dún Laoghaire that other local authorities are not experiencing. Dún Laoghaire's numbers seem to be higher than other areas. We...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: I do not think it is misleading because some people will have their housing need met by moving into the private rental sector. That is where they want to be. That is the choice that they make for themselves.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: They are getting support from the State pay their rent. They are able to work and earn money and it will not impact their ability to get that support from the State through the HAP. Their housing need is met as far as they are concerned.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: Actually, it is. The Deputy can have an individual case where it is not meeting needs and I can have an individual case where it is meeting needs. We deal with thousands of them through the local authorities.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: The whole purpose is not to massage the figures. The HAP, as designed, meets the housing need of the person. That is how it has been established and that is how we define it. Could we have longer-term leases for people in HAP? I think we could. Again, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, and I have been discussing the protections that could be brought into the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: Regarding the housing summit, we will publish the targets quite quickly. I wrote to local authorities at the beginning of the year to ask them to provide information regarding projects under way, what is in the pipeline and the various things they were thinking of doing. We discussed that information as it was fed back in advance of the summit and at the summit to drill down into the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: There is no problem about doing that and we will do so. It was raised at a private session. We are working to that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Update on Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Discussion (25 Jan 2018)

Eoghan Murphy: Open government is good government. I have always believed that and is something that I have tried to ensure, such as in my previous role in the Department of Finance, where the whereyourmoneygoes.gov.iewebsite was set up to give people clarity about where their taxes go. Any transparency about what we are doing in housing is welcome because it is such a major concern for people. We are...