Results 741-760 of 5,655 for speaker:Thomas Gould
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: Reports from the National Oversight and Audit Commission, NOAC, and others show that some local authorities are taking over a year to turn around a vacant house. I am asking what we can do going forward. I am not being critical but what we can do now? We have 500 families in Cork who could be housed tomorrow if these houses were given out.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: That leads to my next question about housing maintenance. There are 146,000 social houses in the State. Two weeks ago, Sinn Féin introduced a motion on housing maintenance. We appreciate that the Government did not try to block it and allowed it to go through. That is good because housing maintenance is a huge issue. I raised a number of issues in the Dáil during that debate,...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: It is a drop in the ocean.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: Cork City Council has 11,000 properties, many of which are more than 60 years old. As a result of the austerity measures from 2007 onwards, only emergency maintenance was done. This means Cork City Council is 17 years behind the curve. It never kicked up because local authorities will not go against the Department or Government.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: Will the Minister of State reinstate all the staff who were slashed after the financial crisis when local authorities were told not to take on any more staff? These are facts.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: I support that move.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: I am conscious of the time. Just to let the Minister know, the first regeneration meeting in Knocknaheeny took place in September 2000. I was at it.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: Twenty-four years later, it is not halfway done. The regeneration of Knocknaheeny could be used as a case study of how not to regenerate an area. I come from Knocknaheeny. Twenty-four years that regeneration has been ongoing. We will not get bogged down in that. As regards dereliction and the derelict sites register, just to let the Minister know, I am not picking on Donegal County...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: How many have been completed?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: No, but what-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: The money could be spread out as people draw it down. I am trying to be constructive here. It could be drawn down over time.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: Sorry, I was at the drugs committee meeting.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: To be fair to Waterford, it is the outlier. It does great work-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: To be fair, if you look at the rest of the local authorities, it is not happening.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: What people tell me is that it might be possible in Waterford but it does not make financial sense in other cities.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: That is what the local authorities are saying.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: There was the 7% levy once it started being levied.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: He might have, but this is going back two years now, so it was about the time the schemes were coming in. Maybe he accessed it afterwards, but the point was that once his property was put on the register and the levy applied, it was the incentive for him to do the work. The thing about it was that he had a number of properties around Cork and other places. Financially, he did not need to...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: Last week, I was contacted by a lady who received notification last week from Cork City Council that there was no emergency accommodation available. The advice was to overstay or find somewhere else to stay in the short term. We now have a crisis. In the first three months of this year, 544 notices to quit were issued in Cork. The tenant in situ scheme has addressed part of that, which is...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Discussion (13 Jun 2024)
Thomas Gould: I have a letter.