Results 7,401-7,420 of 26,843 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: This is pretty tricky because there are so many amendments and many of them are quite different. Have we discussed amendment No. 42?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I am unsure whether I spoke to them and I made that point at the end of our previous meeting. Amendment No. 42 provides that the agency must be publicly owned and controlled. I want to emphasise this because one of the big problems with these agencies that are set up is that they are at one remove from direct control by elected representatives. Essentially, they become buffers against...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That is fair enough. To say it is hard to follow is putting it mildly. We have four different groupings within one group. It is pretty crazy to be honest.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Amendment No. 79 provides that the function of the agency should be to deliver public and affordable housing rather than "housing for public good", which is a meaningless phrase. Of course, that sort of vague phraseology gets to the heart of what is wrong with the LDA and the Government's proposals for dealing with the housing crisis. A phrase like "for public good" does not mean anything....

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I have not finished.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Are we supposed to deal with amendment No. 236 now? Does Deputy Ó Broin want to come in on his amendment first?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I want to respond to the Minister's claim that delivery could not be more public than it is. We need to put this in a concrete context. At the moment, in my area there is virtually no public housing being developed. The local authority build for this year for the Dún Laoghaire area is zero. All of a sudden and out of the blue, notice was given of allocations from the council list to...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I have to respond to two of the Minister's points. The idea that the LDA is acting as some sort of supplement to the local authorities rather than supplanting them is, quite honestly, just nonsense. There is no better example than Shanganagh. There has been delay after delay for years and years. Central government has refused to just give the local authority the money to build on its own...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Sorry, Chairman, but------

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We cannot pass a Land Development Agency Bill that is littered with references to affordable housing by way of the Minister saying we will kick the issue of defining affordable housing down the road to another Bill. The credibility of the Land Development Agency Bill is entirely, or largely, dependent on what affordability means. If affordability turns out to be unaffordable, the Land...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It is being pressed. I am not a member of the committee but if I am allowed to press it, I will do so.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I support this amendment. It is particularly important because I fear that, as this Bill envisages, the involvement of private finance, commercial interests and so on, one will get the usual stuff occurring, which is the real answer as to why the affordable caps are different in different areas. It is because they are worried about the impact on the market. Those sorts of prejudices are...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister did not answer one important question. I want that question answered before I press the amendment. Why are the affordability caps set at different levels in different areas?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I will but I am not letting this pass.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Yes. I move amendment No. 7: In page 8, line 14, after "for" to insert "public".

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I have three amendments here, Nos. 10, 11 and 37. Amendment No. 10 seeks to delete references to "undue segregation" included in the Bill while No. 11 seeks to replace the term "social background" with "incomes". I also aim to replace references to counteracting undue segregation of persons to again emphasise incomes rather than social backgrounds, which is what the Bill does. Amendment...