Results 12,841-12,860 of 26,864 for speaker:Darragh O'Brien

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: It is to assist a purchase such that someone would be the owner-occupied within that space.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: No. I heard the Deputy say that last week. That is not necessarily the case.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: The Deputy will see the line item is Croí Cónaithe €50 million. Effectively, that is the amount that we have this year. I hope we are in a position to be able to spend that this year. We need to get those schemes up and running, which we will do this year.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: A number of issues have been raised by Deputy Higgins which the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, can deal with and I will return to speak on the housing issues then if that is okay.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank Deputy Higgins, in the first instance, for all of her work on this committee in support of the Housing for All strategy. The year 2022 is going to be a very significant one. The Deputy has outlined a number of different funding streams for the delivery of affordable housing. I have been out in Tandy's Lane with the Deputy also. I see our local authorities, like South Dublin County...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: With respect to the Chairman, I wish to return, first, to a couple of points. Arklow and Vartry are two very good examples mentioned there by the Chairman, one which relates to fresh and state-of-the-art drinking water supplies and plant in Vartry and then Arklow, where we have had untreated wastewater since virtually forever going into the Arklow River and polluting that area. We now...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: I will answer very quickly and the Minister of State, Deputy Burke may wish to add on it. It was very significant that the legislation passed and is now an Act. MARA, in skeletal form, will be established this year. I expect it to be fully operational by 1 January 2023. It is very important that we have a streamlined planning process to harness the resource of offshore wind for energy...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: Which heading is that?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: I am just looking at it here. The total expenditure was €2.763 million in 2021. What is the Deputy's question on?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: That is an overall figure, which was a significant increase on the previous year.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: I do not have that figure to hand here. I apologise, I am just trying to find it here. Please bear with me for one second. I will say a general point while I am getting that information for the Deputy. We have substantially increased the investment in the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, year on year. There was a very significant increase between 2020 and 2021. If there is a small...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: I apologise to Deputy Cian O'Callaghan but I just want to get an answer for him on his previous question. If he looks at the out-turn in 2021 under rental inspections, the out-turn was approximately €5.6 million. It was significantly below what we targeted for. Therefore, the estimate for this year is €10.13 million, which would effectively be a near doubling of what was...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: A capacity point. Literally, we had a fall off in the expenditure in 2021.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: Yes but any additional resources the RTB has looked for from me, it has received.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: Yes, we should be. We will also expand the virtual inspections. I expect more inspections. We want to get to a stage where 25% of private rental properties are inspected on an annual basis. Therefore, we have approved additional staff for the RTB, we approved the workforce plan and we have a new chief executive in place. It is in good shape to do that. If I were to allocate €15...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: I was just answering the Deputy's question. That is fine.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: No, it should not be, but it -----

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: It will be a substantial increase as well, if we are being honest with people. There has been substantial increase in the level of rental inspections that have happened heretofore in the past two years. In addition, we are using a hybrid method of doing that, where some virtual inspections will be useful but we want most of them to be physical. Therefore, we will actually increase what we...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: Does the Deputy mean between 2021 and 2022?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 23 - Property Registration Authority (Revised)
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Revised) (10 Feb 2022)

Darragh O'Brien: Is the Deputy asking if we surrendered any money?