Results 13,301-13,320 of 26,396 for speaker:David Cullinane

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: Does he accept it is an emergency? Is that the type of language he would use? Does he accept that for many families in need of housing at present and who simply cannot access it, whether it is affordable or social housing or people stuck in high rent accommodation, this is a housing emergency?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: There are record levels of homelessness, as Mr. McCarthy acknowledged earlier. The people see the politicians and talking heads on the television all of the time, but the witnesses before us, whether the Housing Agency or the Department, are the public and civil servants tasked with building the homes and supplying the solutions, as an Teachta O'Connell spoke about earlier, to meet the...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: I refer to housing needs and I speak primarily from my own experience. I imagine, however, that it is the same for other Members of the Dáil here. People come into my office with a housing need. They want social housing and there is no chance of them getting social housing. I can make as many phone calls as I want to the housing office but the homes are simply not there. The...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: We will get to that in a second. I have Rebuilding Ireland as one of the topics I want to get to. My point is that, as a consequence of policy, rents have now gone up to record levels and to what many people see as unsustainable levels. That is especially the case in Dublin but also in other parts of the country. Part of the reason for that is everybody is now in the same space. Private...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: I am not talking about that. That is the future. We have landed in a situation and we are looking back. We can look to the future and we want to look to the future, but as a committee we primarily look back. Over the past five or ten years, decisions were made to stop building social and affordable housing. As a consequence, the vast majority of people now have their housing needs met...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: That was done. My point is that as we sit here, in real time, here and now, too many people are in private rented accommodation where the rents are too high. I am asking a simple question. Did the Department see that coming?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: Did the Department see it coming that rents would get to such an unsustainable level and be such a huge element of people's incomes? Did it see it coming that the vast majority of people in need of social housing would not have those needs met by local authorities but by the private rental sector and in so doing that would push up the price of rents? Was that foreseen by the Department? I...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: I am going to get to that in a couple of minutes. I want to come now to the issue of Traveller accommodation. Alarm bells went off in my head earlier when Mr. McCarthy spoke of an expert group being established. Frankly, I could not care less what the expert group states. I am sick of expert groups. Mr. McCarthy is the Accounting Officer before us. He is the person responsible for...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: I refer to local authorities that are not stepping up to the plate. Let us cut straight to the chase. I do not need an expert group to tell me what the problem is. I was a councillor for many years. I was in a minority of councillors at times who supported Traveller accommodation when it came before me. We all know what the problems are and we do not need an expert group to tell us why...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: I will finish on this. This is my own point of view. I do not believe the system wants to change. It is almost acceptable that the local authorities do not do it. The money comes back and, sure, it is only Traveller accommodation. There is no real focus on it. I do not see any focus or urgency and it is a real cause of concern for me. I want to get to Rebuilding Ireland, which Mr....

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: Will I be able to come back in?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: The Chair will tell me when my time is up. It will not be my colleague. On Rebuilding Ireland, we know the overall targets. Is there a county-by-county breakdown?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: I have one more question in this space. From the figures for Waterford city and county, I see the target for 2018 to 2021 is 687 units, and we must bear in mind that is acquisitions, lease and build. The figures I got from the local authority show that, up to September of this year, 288 new families were accepted and came onto the housing list. I am looking at the figures for actual people...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: If we take a city and county the size of Waterford, from 2018 to 2021 it is 687 units, including all of those mixes. As I said, I have the figures from the local council showing 288 applications were approved up to September of this year alone.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: That is people on the list. It is the overall figure. I am talking about the number of approved applications. We are not even at the year end, so it will exceed 300, yet the number of units that will be built under Rebuilding Ireland will be much less than that. We then look at the number of units that will be built up to 2021. My point is that the targets we have set are woefully...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: Sinn Féin will be sorting it out.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: I have a remark to make on that topic as well.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: I want to come back to the homelessness figures for a moment. The figure was given that approximately 9,800 people are homeless. I do not have the exact figure for how many people are homeless at this point in time or in homeless accommodation. Was it 9,800?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: Sorry.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: What is the breakdown between adults and children?