Results 17,581-17,600 of 40,897 for speaker:Simon Coveney

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: I will try to stick to my speaking note and maybe we will get through them in the next few hours. In the action plan, we have set a clear target on homelessness, which is to have no families in hotels for emergency accommodation by mid-2017 except in very limited circumstances. Long-term hotel accommodation for families is not acceptable and we need to end it. We will treble the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: There were a lot of questions there.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: I will wait for Deputy Cowen.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: We need more shelter accommodation availability for this winter, particularly in Dublin, and we will provide that. It is not easy to get good quality accommodation that can be altered and prepared for people. Last night I visited Brú Aimsir, about which Deputy Ó Broin has raised issues with me previously. It is an impressive hostel facility for people who are homeless. It...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: Not necessarily. I do not see how the Deputy can say that because HAP has not been around for that length of time.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: That might be a guesstimate.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: There is a need for some realism in this conversation. We simply do not have the social housing stock to accommodate everybody's needs. The question is whether we continue to try to accommodate the people who cannot get accommodated by allocation through rent supplement or whether we try to put something in place with a bit more certainty that is more effective than rent supplement. In HAP...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: There are a number of things. Procurement needs to happen a lot more quickly. We now have an Office of Government Procurement national framework which is close to being finalised. It has attracted a lot of interest from developers who have the capacity to build with rapid build methods and technology. There will be a central database of approved builders that any local authority can...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: To be helpful, we are told by Dublin City Council that the cost for the 22 in Ballymun is €180,000 per house.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: Many people have been throwing out figures of €260,000, €280,000 and €300,000. For the record, it is €180,000, which is not that outrageous.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: I will respond now to the questions posed at this point. I will try to do so quickly, otherwise we will not get past this pillar. I take on board some of the Deputy's points in regard to the rental market. There is a great deal of stakeholder consultation needed to get the balance right in terms of any changes to be made to the rental market. What we do not want to do is make changes that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: We will provide agencies such as Focus Ireland, the Peter McVerry Trust and the Simon Community with the resources to encourage the owners of identified properties to upgrade them so that they can be brought back into use. There is much talk about boarded up houses and empty properties, particularly in our cities. Some of them are in public ownership but most of them are in private...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: That is a design issue. Whether one uses slate on the outside of a house or whether it is painted or pebble dashed is an aesthetic issue. The construct of the houses in Poppintree, which I have been in, is pretty good. Obviously, we must make sure that we are building houses that look attractive, as well as houses that make sense from all the other management perspectives. However, the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: I take some of the points. In respect of Airbnb, I must declare an interest as I went on holidays this summer to France and used Airbnb. It was a great holiday-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: It is up to France to collect the taxes. While Airbnb is a solution for some things, as far as I am concerned it also causes problems in other areas. We are trying to create long-term tenancies and certainty. Airbnb is a short-term solution mostly for people who are on holidays or who are staying somewhere on city breaks and so on. There are also issues pertaining to regulation,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: May I take a break first?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: The centralised procurement process will be in place by November, but that does not delay it because the various councils in Dublin have pressed ahead with their own procurement processes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: It is a combination of everything, which is why we are trying to shorten the time for each stage.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (14 Sep 2016)

Simon Coveney: We had a long conversation on rapid build earlier, with respect. We spent quite a bit of time on it.