Results 10,481-10,500 of 14,981 for speaker:Eoin Ó Broin

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Data (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: 159. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will publish a quarterly serviced sites fund accommodation construction pipeline report similar to that currently produced for social housing to enable the Houses of the Oireachtas to track the progress in the delivery of affordable accommodation to rent and buy under the fund. [29870/20]

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: 160. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government when he expects the delivery of the 20,000 homes including 8,000 discounted price homes assisted through the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund which was to see the delivery of these homes by the end of 2019; the status of the spreadsheet of each LIHAF funded project including the number of discounted units...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Land Development Agency (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: 161. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to outline his plans to publish new heads of a Bill for the Land Development Agency; and if he plans to consult with the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage before proceeding to finalisation of the legislation and publication of the final LDA Bill. [29872/20]

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Social and Affordable Housing (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: 162. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of housing first tenancies created in each of the years 2016 to 2019 and to date in 2020; and the breakdown for each local authority for each of the years and to date in 2020. [29873/20]

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: To follow up on Senator Fitzpatrick’s point, it would be good to have Dave Kenny in as he is going to be the Government’s tsar on retrofitting. My understanding is that at some point the Government is going to merge social and the non-social housing into a complete programme. I am sure he would be happy to attend the committee, as well as the local authorities.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: We must keep in mind that the discussion we had about Home for Good earlier is on the constitutional right to housing because it is on that matter that they are seeking to make the presentation . If I understood the conversation we had earlier correctly, the idea would be to have a stand-alone session on that where we could invite Home for Good and others in before the committee. On the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: Yes. I only sent my communication to the clerk this morning but I had asked if the proposal that the committee had agreed previously could be re-circulated before a decision was made on it?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: We agreed at the previous meeting that we would have a stand-alone session to look at the cost-effectiveness of various social housing delivery streams. A number of us want to do this, and it can be informed by the Department's report. Separately, we need to do the same thing with all of the various Government interventions on affordable housing, such as the local infrastructure housing...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: There is a need for a stand-alone session to look at the impact of Covid-19 on a number of aspects of the business of the committee. One is that which Deputy Cian O'Callaghan has mentioned. The ESRI has compiled two very detailed reports on the impacts or potential impacts of Covid-19 on housing output. Given the nature of Covid, that is something we should prioritise to happen before the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: I agree with Senator Cummins. My worry is that if we keep loading everything into the meeting with the Minister we will not get to most of it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: The former Chairman of the committee, former Deputy Maria Bailey, did a really good report for the last committee. It fed into the aforementioned former Minister of State's housing strategy for older people so we could do a really useful session reviewing the previous report, the Minister's strategy and then looking at other issues like the nursing home support scheme. That would be a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: It was not a report on the nursing home support scheme, it was a report on housing options for older people but it did include stuff about that scheme. We should keep in mind that we could decide to do some of these meetings virtually over three hours with a half-hour break. In the first hour and a half we could look at housing options for older people and in the second hour and a half look...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: I will make two points. The specific issue, while it relates to the flat complexes because they are some of the older stock, also relates to some of the stock in the voluntary sector, such as The Iveagh Trust, which are even older. The Iveagh Trust is currently considering moving some of its social housing stock into affordable housing because it is having financial difficulties with...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: I am with Deputy McAuliffe. Many people do not realise that an AHB gets substantially more money from the Government per unit of accommodation than a local authority does. AHBs get an estimated cost of the long-term maintenance of the stock whereas local authorities do not. In fact, local authorities do not get anything for stock maintenance and the rents pay less than half of that cost....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: I agree with Senator Fitzpatrick that we want the officials rather than the Minister to attend some of these meetings. For example, regarding the approval process for the public spending code, the two lead officials from the two Departments should come in. It would be good to have the CCMA in because they can give us the overview of the local government sector. There has been a review of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: It is important we do not duplicate or mistime the work. For example, legislation is coming soon for a directly elected mayor for Limerick, which we will have to consider in prelegislative scrutiny. That will be a good opportunity for us to widen out that conversation. My understanding is the programme for Government has a commitment for a Citizens' Assembly on a directly elected mayor for...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: I do not want to argue in any way against the proposal but for the benefit of new Deputies and Senators, there is usually resistance from the relevant Department when we stray into the responsibility of another committee. We had a problem previously when we sought to raise issues that were dealt with by another Department. We were told we could not raise them because they were the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: It is an even broader issue than that. The Accounting Officers in local authorities are not accountable to anybody beyond themselves, whereas every departmental Accounting Officer, who is also the Secretary General, is brought before the Committee of Public Accounts. That is not the case with local government. There have been two debates up until this point. One is that the Committee...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: No, there were some discussions in the previous Dáil but they never went anywhere. This is something that this committee could legitimately raise as an issue and invite various people in to speak upon. We could invite the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Chairman of the Committee Public Accounts and the head of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform or whomever else, and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Committee Work Programme: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Oct 2020)

Eoin Ó Broin: To be helpful, with regard to PLS, ordinarily what happens is the Department would come in but the committee would also invite others to come in to give views on it. As this is legislation of great importance, it would not be unusual, for example, for the Environmental Protection Agency or the Sustainable Water Network, SWAN - who look after advocacy for water - or whomever, to attend. The...