Results 7,101-7,120 of 25,732 for speaker:Darragh O'Brien

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: We will publish the statistics every quarter, so I am quite happy to provide them here. There is a county by county breakdown. The Senator will see that some counties are significantly behind others.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: We are trying to encourage local authorities.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: Right now, it is double its base target.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: We will publish-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: To break it down as best we have it, and this is just for transparency purposes, there is an initial baseline target, which was the minimum of 1,500. We have 807 sales completed. Between those at the stages of offer accepted and sale agreed and in conveyancing, we have 1,321. On top of these, there are another 688 proposals. People bring forward proposals.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: A lot of them will work. We are looking at a total pipeline of 2,816 at present.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: There is no issue with funding.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: The Senator knows this measure is intended to prevent people from going into homelessness; hence the question. Cost rental is not a free for all. We are expanding cost rental to new properties. I take the point on whether there is a better administrative way to do it. As I said at the outset, we are seeing quite a considerable increase in the numbers. I never thought that the cost rental...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: We intend to expand the rent-a-room scheme to people in social housing who are social housing tenants. There are some criteria and we are working through them. It is a decision the Government made. We want to ensure that the income will be disregarded from any social welfare entitlement that people may have. Not every tenant will have a social welfare entitlement. This is the intention...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: There are some complexities in it. The Government made a decision that we want to expand the rent-a-room scheme to social housing. It cannot be clearer.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: We have discussed this in the Dáil but I want to give the Deputy figures for Limerick. Limerick City and County Council is a merged local authority. The base target was set at 75 for purchase for tenants in situand the pipeline is 179. It is performing very well.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: STAR is the secure tenancy affordable rental investment scheme. It is to activate further properties for cost rental. We are looking at a State subvention per unit, or investment by way of equity, of up to €150,000 per unit. We got approval to do this in the middle of the year from the Government. We have some large cost-rental schemes that we can get going and get off the ground....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: It will be an opportunity to unlock further potential on cost rental. With regard to the changes we have made that I referred to, in March the net income limit was set at €53,000. We did research on the level of income to which we could increase this to make sure that the people we wanted the schemes to reach could get into them. From 1 August, the net income limit for Dublin is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: The Housing Agency manages it and it assesses each proposal on an open book basis. Then it comes to us to sign off and approve.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: STAR is for cost rental.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: We will consider Focus Ireland's proposal. Its representatives sit on the national homeless action committee. We do a lot of work with Mr. Pat Dennigan, Mr. Mike Allen and others. Many of the changes to cost-rental tenancies in situand the purchase with tenants in situhave emanated from the NGOs with which we are working. We will consider that proposal and are doing so.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: The scheme is working very well. We will consider the proposal. We want to make sure we are not incentivising sales and we must be careful about that. We have had issues in a small number of instances where people know the State is purchasing the properties and the price has gone way above what the market price would be. The Deputy will appreciate that we have to be careful about how we...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: I will go through each of the Dublin allocations. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown had an allocation of 50. In the pipeline now are 54. For Fingal, the baseline target was 125. It now has 329 in the pipeline. The baseline target for South Dublin County Council was 150. It now has 285 in the pipeline. We are not telling anyone-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: We are encouraging all local authorities where we can. It sometimes depends on what properties come to sale. That is also an issue that impacts what local authorities can do. As I said earlier, I expect we will spend in the region of €300 million on this scheme this year. This is the most significant purchase scheme with tenants in situever. I understood there was comment and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Cost Rental Tenant In Situ Scheme: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (21 Sep 2023)

Darragh O'Brien: I am glad the Senator has raised that point. Guidance has been given. Working that through on housing need was an issue at the start. In some instances, people may be underaccommodated. A family of four might be in a two-bedroom apartment, but to secure the tenancy, the property may be purchased with the understanding that the family may transfer somewhere else. The same applies for...