Results 15,561-15,580 of 25,999 for speaker:Darragh O'Brien

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2020: Second Stage (25 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: On a point of order, I do not want to be argumentative in any way but I have outlined what happened clearly, in good faith and in a truthful manner. The Senator is trying to twist that. That did not happen so let us be honest about what happened.

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2020: Second Stage (25 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I was trying to be helpful.

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2020: Second Stage (25 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: It has been a tough week for them.

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2020: Second Stage (25 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I know.

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2020: Second Stage (25 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: Was he okay?

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2020: Second Stage (25 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank Members for their contributions and for the points they have raised, all of which I have taken note of and some of which I will do my best to respond to today. We can come back to some of the others on Monday, but all of the points have been taken on board. At the outset, I will mention an issue which was raised by a Senator today. I refer to a very tragic death in the vicinity of...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Public Procurement Contracts (25 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: In line with requirements, my Department maintains a contracts register for contracts in excess of €25,000. Many of the contracts procured by the Department and on that register over the period in question, are for specialised equipment (e.g. for meteorological purposes) or for ICT licensing arrangements and were not always conducive to social clauses. Social clauses have been...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Local Authority Housing (25 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: Increasing the supply of housing, particularly new build social and affordable is a priority for me and for this Government. The Programme for Government commits to increasing the social housing stock by more than 50,000, with an emphasis on new builds. In Budget 2021, we backed this objective with funding of €3.3 billion for the delivery of housing. The available funding will deliver...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government: Social and Affordable Housing (25 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I propose to take Questions Nos. 81 to 85, inclusive, together. My Department publishes comprehensive programme level statistics on a quarterly basis on all social housing delivery activity under Rebuilding Ireland. This is published on the statistics page of my Department’s website, at the following link: . Detailed information on Part V delivery is available on my Department's...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Data (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I thank the Deputy for raising this very important issue, which we also discussed six weeks ago. There have been, as he rightly said, a number of deaths recently of people who were either rough sleeping or accessing homeless services. Every death is a tragedy. I have already and will extend again my sympathy to their families, friends and to the service providers who get to know many of...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Data (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: No one wants to categorise people within this. All I am saying is that I used the example of that gentleman and there are others, who are people who were accessing homeless services and counted in these terrible figures and shocking statistics. That is just to simply state a fact. I chair the north Dublin regional drugs and alcohol task force and I am aware of the need to increase funding....

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Data (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I understand that.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Data (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: We are still on the question raised by Deputy Ó Broin at the moment and I know that Deputy O’Callaghan has a question on that.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Data (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: That is okay.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Data (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: That is okay. I am just asking because the Deputy has a question on a particular issue, just a couple of questions down on the list. Returning to Deputy Ó Broin’s point, we need to look at how these deaths are reported. I am going to do that and am giving a commitment here, as well as when the report is completed. The appropriate place for that is the Joint Committee on...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I do not know if the Deputies are aware of the history of the site. It has been in council ownership since around 2007. It is 2020 now. When one says to just let the local authorities build it, it is 13 years later and they have not done so.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: Deputy Ó Broin's party was chair of the housing strategic policy committee in Dublin City Council-----

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: -----up until the local elections last year so he can ask Daithí Doolan and his friends there who he controls about why they did not vote for certain housing developments across the city. To get back to the Deputy's point, the Government is interested in letting local authorities build. We raised the discretionary cap to €6 million to allow local authorities to do that. That...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social and Affordable Housing (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: The non-adversarial nature that is professed by the Deputies opposite has already broken down in advance of me receiving any proposal whatsoever regarding the Oscar Traynor Road development. What this Government will do in the budget that the Opposition voted against is use the single largest housing budget in the State's history, with €3.3 billion for housing and 12,750 new social,...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Homeless Persons Supports (24 Nov 2020)

Darragh O'Brien: I visited many of the outreach centres all across Dublin. I chair the homelessness delivery task force, which is made up of many of our homeless partners such as Focus Ireland, Depaul Ireland, Dublin Simon Community, Peter McVerry Trust and many others, and we meet on a biweekly basis. Funding is not an issue. We have an issue with the funding for some of the section 10 organisations,...