Results 701-720 of 8,015 for speaker:Jonathan O'Brien

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: Is it Mr. Murray's experience that people who come off the housing list are not being put back on a transfer list? For example, I would imagine the 42% reduction arises because people are getting HAP tenancies, although the witness might correct me if I am wrong. That would not happen in all cases but it would be a certain percentage.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: Mr. Murray is not seeing a corresponding increase in the transfer list.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: With regard to social housing delivery output, the total new build numbers at the end of quarter 4 for 2018 was 4,251. There is a breakdown, with 841 units under Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 and 1,388 units from approved housing bodies. That leaves 2,022 new builds so can we get a further breakdown of that 2,022? How many were constructed from the ground up, how many...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: When the witness states they were from the ground up, would they have been council properties that were knocked and rebuilt?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: The Knocknaheeny regeneration is my area. I am sure our guests are familiar with it. The project will give rise to no net increase in the number of houses because we have knocked everything and are rebuilding those units. These are classed as new builds but we are not getting any additional homes. These are the figures I am trying to get. Of the 2,022, how many are new properties that...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: I am well aware of that and this is not a criticism.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: I am sorry if Mr. Murray takes it that way. It is not a criticism. I am very familiar with regeneration. I know exactly what it is about. It is about turning years of bad planning into better, sustainable communities. That does not help a person who is languishing on a list for ten years. These are the figures I am trying to get at. How many new or additional houses did the local...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: That is fair enough. I have a final question, although I definitely want to come back in. Does the Department have those figures? The witness was about to give me the breakdown. I believe it was 200 regeneration.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: The local authorities built an additional 1,054 houses last year.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: The local authorities built an additional 1,054 houses last year.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: No, I am talking about the local authority direct build units.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: I will use my six minutes to tease out some of the issues that local authorities see in the provision of housing. I have no doubt that if it was up to them, they would house everyone on their lists in the morning. I am not suggesting there is some conspiracy to keep people on lists. What are the main barriers the witnesses see in their positions on local authorities? Is the main issue...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: In recent weeks, we have heard a great deal in the media about politicians objecting to housing developments. Is that something local authority chief executives see in their own areas, or is not such a big issue?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: In Mr. Murray's experience, is the objection to the housing itself or to the type of development? I know that in some cases people have issues concerning road access or traffic management. The problem may not be the housing development itself.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: I imagine one of the difficulties with acquisitions or with relying on the private sector to build assets and then buying them, that is, the use of turnkeys, is a poor mix of developments. Mr. Murray can correct me if I am wrong. In Cork, 50% of the housing waiting list is made up of single people. We are not building any properties to cater for that cohort. Most of the turnkey...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: Is downsizing an issue in the local authorities in Mr. Murray's area or from his experience of dealing with other city and county managers? Some of the evidence I have is that we have individuals in three and four bedroom properties who wish to downsize and are finding it very difficult to do that due to red tape and so on.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: They may need assisted living.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: I want to ask a few questions for the purposes of getting information. I am pretty sure of the answers but I want to have them confirmed. If a local authority is a net beneficiary of the local property tax and it decides to cut the tax, does this come out of the authority's discretionary funding and it is not given the extra?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: I presume this is the same if the local authority is a net contributor or decides to cut it: everything comes from the authority's own discretionary funding.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (28 Feb 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: The funding itself is pretty complicated. There are many different streams of funding coming into local authorities from various Departments and agencies and I want to touch on some of them. I was looking, for instance, at the total funding that goes into local government from across all Departments, including the local property tax. We are almost back up to the 2011 levels of funding. It...