Results 801-820 of 26,831 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister has answered it. I am amazed that the Government does not regret what has happened. If we had had that money, it might have made a difference. We could now possibly do with that money but it seems to me that it would have made a dramatic difference to the current housing crisis that we are facing had we had access to that money then and had the Government pursued it instead of...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Let me put it to you-----

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Yes, I know. Nonetheless, that is a very worrying admission on the Minister’s part. Nobody is disputing that we need 50,000, 60,000 or maybe 70,000 houses a year but what the Minister seems to be saying is that it might be overheating the economy to try to deliver that. The Central Bank is talking about a timeline. Does the Minister accept that we are, therefore, facing a deficit...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: There are other ways around the overheating issue.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That sounds like we are facing into at least a decade, if not more, of a housing crisis. If we do not meet those targets, it is going to accumulate, just like the deficit we already have.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I have a question on another area. There was an announcement in July of this year that the recruitment embargo had been lifted in the health service. I did not know at the time but have been informed by workers in my local hospital, St. Michael’s, and subsequently by the National Rehabilitation Hospital people when I went to the opening of the new wing there, and it has been...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That is what I am being told by the workers.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Even if the staffing levels are unsafe.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I am saying that the staffing levels are unsafe.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Either you can meet the targets or you cannot.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Conclusion of IBRC Special Liquidation and Dissolution of NAMA Bill: Department of Finance (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The witnesses are probably not going to acknowledge this point but it is worth saying, because it is what everybody else thinks, that it is not just about what the State could have sold the loans at had we held on to them but it is also about what it could have used them for instead of selling them. To my mind this is the biggest scandal of it all. The State had the biggest property...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Conclusion of IBRC Special Liquidation and Dissolution of NAMA Bill: Department of Finance (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: How much of that is public and affordable, or is it mostly private?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Conclusion of IBRC Special Liquidation and Dissolution of NAMA Bill: Department of Finance (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I know Senator Higgins wants to get in, but I will very quickly ask another question. Mr. Carville stated that approximately 6,000 units are in the long-term category.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Conclusion of IBRC Special Liquidation and Dissolution of NAMA Bill: Department of Finance (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I will conclude on this point. It is crazy that we are being asked to look at this legislation before we know all the detail of precisely what is happening with what NAMA has, what could be done with it and the options that are available. All of it should be maximised to deliver social and affordable housing as quickly as possible. It should be serviced and whatever needs to be done to it...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Conclusion of IBRC Special Liquidation and Dissolution of NAMA Bill: Department of Finance (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Mr. Carville's response is appreciated. I thank Senator Higgins for allowing me to conclude.

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Schemes (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 409. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he intends to raise the advisory price limits on the tenant-in-situ scheme for county councils, due to the inflation of house prices in recent years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36783/24]

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Policy (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 406. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the estimated cost of raising the current social housing income eligibility thresholds by €10,000 per year nationwide, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36740/24]

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Schemes (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 407. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the latest figures on the number of households on the HAP and RAS schemes and rent allowance respectively; the cost of each, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36741/24]

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Rental Sector (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 408. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of households currently privately renting their principal residence; the number of those households that are within the social housing income limits; the number within the cost rental income limits; the number above those limits; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36742/24]

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Schemes (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 423. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government for a report on the cost-rental tenant-in-situ and the tenant-in-situ programmes, broken down by local authority; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36958/24]