Results 161-180 of 9,065 for speaker:James Browne

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: Whatever funding is needed to deliver what housing can be delivered, that funding will be made available.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: It will depend on the prices and what the demand for that funding will be too. Once the year's outturn has been completed and the delivery has been completed, we can assess the situation. Trying to predict at this point exactly what the drawdown will be is-----

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: The Deputy will be aware that expenditure does not always neatly fit into a 12-month period of delivery. Some, such as CALF, is forward funded and there will always be a question with local authorities as to when they actually finalise contracts, draw down funds and so on. It is never as neat having a target of X and simply multiplying that out by the cost of those houses.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: At the end of the year and into the start of next year, we will assess what has been requested from the local authorities and what has been delivered and then we will have a very clear picture. If there is a shortfall, it will be very clear at that point. As I said, the delivery of housing does not always neatly fit into one year. At this point in time, it would be quite difficult to make...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: I would not be able to speak to their mindset.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: Absolutely. In fairness to the Department of public expenditure and the Department of Finance, they receive very significant demand from across Government and difficult decisions always have to be made. In my sense of it, they did not have any particular issue with housing. What they would have always said was that their difficulty was in balancing the demands from the different...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: Absolutely. With a new Government, the Department of public expenditure and reform was trying to assess what that funding was, what was available and how to meet that challenge. When you look at what actually ended up being the outturn, where about €1 in every €3 over the next five years is going to be spent on directly delivering housing or on infrastructure to facilitate the...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: No.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: No, I do not believe it affected our delivery of housing.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: No, I do not believe it has led to a delay. We have an open call with AHBs, for example, so there is sometimes confusion between an application coming in and whether we decide to fund a project. Some seem to have the view or position, or misunderstand, that because they have put in an application, there is an entitlement to funding and, therefore, if they do not get the funding within a...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: As there is a bit of maths involved, I would not be able to do that at this short notice but I can attempt to get those numbers for the Deputy.

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: We know that inflation in the construction industry, in particular, has driven up costs quite significantly. That has affected the viability challenge around the delivery and why we are having to make a certain amount of important decisions around facilitating the viability and, in turn, affecting the affordability for people to be able to purchase. In terms of taking inflation into...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: The general construction inflation is known and is out there. For particular housing projects, it varies quite substantially depending on the nature of the scheme, its location, the nature of the contracts. How much of a particular project is actually inflation would always be an exceptionally difficult thing to judge. Let us say we agree a contract with, for example, an AHB that has come...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: There could be all sorts of reasons for turning down a project. We have to examine the value for money of any project. For any project, the Department has to look at governance issues, the viability of the project and, if there are developers involved, the capacity of those developers to deliver. There could be all sorts of reasons as to why a project may be delayed. The reality is the...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: That we have a budget?

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: There are very few projects that would not get approved. There are not delays but it cannot be a case that an application comes in tomorrow and we simply give the green for go. There has to be a value for money assessment. There has to be an appropriate assessment in terms of local authority needs for a particular area. We have to ensure the governance is there, otherwise I would be back...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: We only have to look at the level of quality housing that has been delivered. Considering the level of money the Department of housing has been managing in terms of funding AHBs to deliver projects, for example, very few projects have had an actual delivery issue. This is a credit to the AHBs but it is also a credit to the Department of housing working with the AHBs to ensure these projects...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: I thank Deputy Ó Muirí. The LDA is absolutely essential to housing delivery by the State, and its capacity to deliver has been increasing quite significantly. In terms of community support, it works very closely with local communities and we see very good examples of this. It is up to the Government on a wider level to ensure elements such as primary care centres are located in...

Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised) (2 Oct 2025)

James Browne: I am happy to engage with Deputy Ó Muirí on this. As he is aware, the LDA is funded separately from the Department of housing, although we provide some Exchequer funding to it and we work closely with it. The team at the LDA is quite good at working with other Departments on this need. Deputy Ó Muirí is right on the need for co-ordination with a local community as we...