Results 14,141-14,160 of 25,979 for speaker:Darragh O'Brien

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: My thanks to Deputy Boyd Barrett for his amendments. I will deal with his initial comments first. We are talking here about a commercial semi-state company. It is 100% publicly owned. It is fully accountable to the Oireachtas. There is full oversight. I have ensured that there will be full freedom of information provisions and oversight from the Comptroller and Auditor General. It...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: Again, we discussed this at length on Tuesday. This is about delivery. The main purpose of the LDA will be to deliver affordable and social housing. In many instances, particularly in our urban centres, we will have 100% affordable and social in the sense that entire developments will be made up that mix of housing, particularly in Dublin and in Cork. We need to ensure the agency also has...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank the Deputies for their contributions. No one is talking about offering unaffordable, open market sales at all. Deputy Ó Broin knows that. I intend to align the provisions of Part 9 more closely to the provisions of the recently published Affordable Housing Bill. This significant affordable housing legislation is in the Seanad and will, hopefully, pass Committee Stage...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I assure Deputy O'Callaghan I am extremely serious about delivering affordable and social homes to the Land Development Agency at scale. That is not just talking about it but actually doing something about it, as colleagues in Fingal County Council did on Tuesday. I do not defend that by the way, but I welcome it. The Deputy will have to explain, as Deputies Ó Broin and Boyd Barrett...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I will happily respond to that. I was not ignoring the Deputy's question but it relates to the Affordable Housing Bill, which is not the Bill in front of us. It is a matter of caps, not targets. We are not setting affordability at the levels of the caps; rather, we are saying the cap in an area is unaffordable. The measures being introduced in the Affordable Housing Bill, such as shared...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: With respect to Deputy Boyd Barrett, I have answered his question even though it does not relate directly to the group of amendments.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I fully understand where the Deputies are coming from and I am certainly happy to examine the remit of the agency. Following on from our debate on the previous grouping of amendments, we need to be clear that the LDA is not a housing authority or a planning authority. The primary responsibility for the delivery of homes and of Traveller accommodation is with the local authorities, and I...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank Deputies Ó Broin, Gould and Smith for tabling those two amendments. I fully understand the intent of the amendments. To follow on from what Deputy Boyd Barrett said, I have always been, and continue to be, a full and unambiguous supporter of Traveller-specific accommodation and improving the lot of our Traveller community. The Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, has been...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett may have missed my earlier contribution in which I said we will be aligning this Bill with the Affordable Housing Bill. Both are significant Bills. They were introduced by the Government within a year of its establishment. The Land Development Agency Bill was in gestation for years but we have changed it and brought it forward. It will have a genuine impact on...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank the Deputies for tabling this amendment, which is similar but not identical to the previous one. It affords me the opportunity to mention a couple of things with regard to the work I have been doing with my colleague, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. I recognise the commitment in the programme for Government to ending direct provision. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, has done an...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I appreciate Deputy Ó Broin's remarks. More work is needed on the amendment. As drafted, it asks that land be provided for the provision of accommodation for those from the asylum application process. I am sure that like me Deputy Ó Broin would not like to see any unintended consequences arising from the designation of land within a development for asylum seekers. That would be...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I will probably need about a half an hour to respond to that diatribe. We may have to come back to it at the next meeting. There were so many untruths and incorrect comments but there were also some elements we could address. There was one element with regard to the wording as drafted at which I will commit to looking. We will need to look at the whole section together, however. We...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (27 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: I welcome that but I will leave the matter to the committee to discuss and decide.

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Homeless Persons Supports (26 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: There have been a number of deaths, in recent months, of people who had been sleeping rough or accessing homeless services. Each of these deaths is a tragedy and I extend my sympathies to the families concerned. The deaths of people availing of homeless services are a concern and are being taken very seriously. It is important that we establish the facts concerning the circumstances...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Defective Building Materials (26 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: The Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks in Construction (Remediation) (Financial Assistance) Regulations 2020 came in to operation on 31 January 2020 and the resulting Defective Concrete Blocks Grant scheme has only been open for applications since the end of June last year. The scheme design was informed by the comprehensive work of an Expert Panel and the current...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Insurance Industry (26 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: The local authority mortgage protection insurance (MPI) scheme has applied to all house purchase loans approved by local authorities after 1 July 1986, including the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan introduced on 1 February 2018. One of the conditions of the MPI scheme, which is a group policy, is that it is obligatory for all local authority borrowers who meet the eligibility criteria to...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Local Authorities (26 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: Under section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, each Chief Executive is responsible for staffing and organization arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authorities for which he or she is responsible. In this regard, the assignment of local authority staff to a particular function, such as planning, is a matter for the Chief Executive. My Department is...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Housing Issues (26 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: To date my Department has not been made aware of voluntary housing bodies, also known as an Approved Housing Bodies (AHB), selling units to their former tenants once all statutory obligations have been completed. My Department cannot unilaterally make provision for the sale of AHB homes to their tenants as the ownership of these properties remains with the AHB. If an AHB is in receipt of...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Cybersecurity Policy (26 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: My Department recognises that maintaining an up to date and secure IT system is of central importance in ensuring the safety and integrity of its business systems, files and data. This is achieved through a combination of Business Continuity Planning, Disaster Recovery planning, cyber security measures and ensuring that suitable infrastructure and systems are in place across multiple sites....

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Cybersecurity Policy (26 May 2021)

Darragh O'Brien: My Department acknowledges that IT security is of critical importance in protecting against unauthorised access of its IT system. In recognition of this, cyber security is applied at all times in line with best practice standards and guidelines in conjunction with advisories issued by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer and the National Cyber Security Centre of the...