Results 16,781-16,800 of 40,897 for speaker:Simon Coveney

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Data (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: I agree it seems ridiculously expensive.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Data (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: It is a case of using the best available technology to get houses built as quickly as we can to try to meet the demand for social housing. It is as simple as that. If one looks at the reasons that the rapid-build programme has stalled and is taking longer than some had hoped, one can point to procurement, for example. It has taken the Office of Government Procurement some time to get...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Commission on Domestic Public Water Services (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: I am not a member of the Business Committee but my understanding was that there was an agreement, in principle, in terms of the number of Members of the Oireachtas on the committee, which will be 20. I understand that the Government is to bring forward a motion that is consistent with that next week in order to facilitate establishment. I am not aware of any objection. I made a point of...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Commission on Domestic Public Water Services (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: It is grouped with Questions Nos. 27 and 33, just to be helpful.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Commission on Domestic Public Water Services (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: The Deputy sees the conspiracy in every sentence.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Data (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: I ask that the Chair give me a bit of extra time since I am dealing with three questions.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Data (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: I am pleased that these questions have been asked. Often, the debate around rapid build becomes very negative because the initial rapid-build project - which was something of a pilot project - was delayed and encountered problems. The easy thing would be for me to say that I am not going to answer for my predecessor and all the rest of it. However, the reality is that what the previous...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Commission on Domestic Public Water Services (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: We got €280,000 to spend on the costs, which are expenses related to the commission. That money has not been spent yet. Most of it is for the cost of providing staff from the Institute of Public Administration, IPA, to service the secretariat. That cost relates to a senior researcher, a researcher, administration support - as well as the involvement of the IPA's director general in...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Commission on Domestic Public Water Services (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: That is not my understanding.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Commission on Domestic Public Water Services (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: It is important to be accurate. This commission will have worked for five months, not three. The people we have asked to serve on it are knowledgeable, successful and busy individuals. This has taken up a lot of their time, I suspect. Approximately half of them are not Irish but the chairperson makes the majority Irish. They are all experts in their fields and if we want to get good...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Social and Affordable Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: Part V is not leasing.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Social and Affordable Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: With regard to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, while I was in talking about how we can deliver more social houses, Deputy Boyd Barrett was outside protesting.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Social and Affordable Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: As opposed to making a contribution to the solution, he was just screaming and shouting, as usual. The issue for Dún Laoghaire or for anywhere else is that its local authority decides how many social houses it wants to deliver and then we will pay for them. We want to work with local authorities to ramp up social housing delivery dramatically. I made that very clear when I was in...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Social and Affordable Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: The point I was making about protesting is that we were out there to discuss how we ramp up and significantly increase social and affordable housing provision in Dún Laoghaire, which has specific problems because of the extraordinarily high average rents and house prices there. We need to tailor solutions, as I made clear to some of the councillors who are connected to Deputy Boyd...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Planning Issues (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: We have been acting in trying to get down the cost of building a house. That is what the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, is all about. It is also why we are making publicly owned land available in an effort to create joint public private partnerships and in getting affordable housing projects moving. This is why we are looking at a much more streamlined and efficient...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Planning Issues (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: When making the decisions in the Rebuilding Ireland strategy, we looked at the process of building a house and looked at the levers that are controlled by the Government, by local government and by me. We looked at the obvious things that we could change. We know, for example, that 15 planning applications for more than 100 houses have been submitted to An Bord Pleanála this year. We...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Social and Affordable Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: The 47,000 social housing units to be delivered under Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, span the years 2016 to 2021. All of these 47,000 units will be available for local authorities to utilise in addressing housing need for those on waiting lists. Of the overall total,up to 33,650 will be owned and available to be managed by local authorities. Of these 33,650...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: That is a very fair point. Depending on where lands are located, the circumstances in the communities around them and so on, sometimes we need to actively try to get private housing in certain areas in order to create real mixed-tenure and broader communities - O'Devaney Gardens is a good example of that. In other areas, it may be sensible to have a higher percentage of social housing...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Housing Provision (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: I do not have a closed mind. I find it difficult to believe that local authorities would be able to manage projects more efficiently than a competitive tendering process where a project goes to market and the person who produces the best and lowest cost proposal will be awarded the contract. Local authorities should be involved in the management of the process. By and large, however, the...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Planning Issues (17 Nov 2016)

Simon Coveney: The Deputy has asked a slightly different question to the one that was tabled. I will respond to his comments. We are now working with the Housing Agency to put together an independent audit of build cost. The Deputy has requested that for some time and of course it makes sense to do it. I do not think we should rely on the Chartered Surveyors of Ireland, even though the report it...