Results 1,901-1,920 of 3,444 for speaker:Shane Cassells
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: I welcome Mr. O'Connor and the staff from the Housing Agency, as well as Mr. McCarthy and the staff from the Department. I thank them all for their work and support. At this committee last month Mr. Brendan McDonagh, chief executive officer of NAMA, was questioned on its remit in respect of the role of housing in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report and disclosed that 6,984 social...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: Even if the 1,843 properties which were sold are taken out of the total, that still means that 50% of the total was not accepted by the local authorities. There is no way that NAMA offered 2,500 holiday homes to the local authorities. The Secretary General has said that he does not want the Department to issue missives or directives in terms of what the local authorities do. When I asked...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: Can the witness tell us who is making the call here? The Minister has firmly suggested that the Housing Agency co-ordinated the response, with the result that only 50% of these homes were taken up.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: The OPW, which appeared before this committee last week, told us that squandering €11 million on empty office space was a good deal. We are now hearing that rejecting 50% of a portfolio of homes offered for social housing is reasonable. It is not reasonable. The response goes to the heart of the matter in terms of what is deemed suitable and not suitable. Elsewhere in the answer we...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: That is what I mean. Is the Housing Agency saying it should not be the case? The Housing Agency is blaming the local authorities, and the local authorities are blaming the Housing Agency. I want to get to the root of this. It is good that all relevant people are together in the same room.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: The Minister has said that it did take a view.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: This goes to the heart of every frustration we have here in terms of dealing with bodies with responsibility in this State. I asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government how, at a time of a housing crisis, 50% of houses offered for social housing can be discounted because they have been deemed not suitable. The Minister is blaming the Housing Agency and the Housing Agency...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: I was not drawing Mr. John McCarthy into this at all but he has jumped in. The interpretation of sustainability frustrates the life out of me. I was raised in the middle of a large town with council estates on every side. We seem to have lost the phrase "council estates". I did not differentiate between private homes and council homes. They were very good communities. Again, I return to...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: We do not have time to get into the myriad of reasons they did not work out. At the start of the noughties, substantial council estates were still being built in my town. In tandem, funding was got from the Department to build community centres in the middle of them to make sure they worked as sustainable communities. Swimming pools and so forth also were provided. In Mr. John...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: Mr. John McCarthy must be frustrated. I am a strong believer in autonomous local government. If a stage is reached where the local authorities are not delivering, the Secretary General and Minister must be saying at the meetings with all the city and county managers that they are not delivering or prepared to take risks, and they must be questioning the point in having them in the first place.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: It is not good enough. I am not blaming Mr. McCarthy. There is a problem at local government level but he is the Accounting Officer for local government. There is a significant amount of money in the Vote in this area. I have touched on one area in which, as a result of what is happening, we are ending up having to spend more money on HAP. There was a report in the newspapers yesterday...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: This is not a laughing matter. CCMA representatives did not attend today. We will write to them again asking them to do so. There is no point in Mr. John McCarthy, as Accounting Officer, and the Minister allocating significant funds to the local government system if it is failing to deliver.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: I want to ask about whether LIHAF is delivering what it is supposed to deliver. In my county, there has been no substantial progress in the two schemes that were acknowledged. I do not want to focus on my county but on the general situation. Since the inception of LIHAF, how many finished units have been made available through both private schemes and council-delivered schemes?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: What is under construction?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: How many were there in total in the scheme when it was first initiated?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: Thirty nationwide. Two pieces of infrastructure are under construction to enable work on the landbanks.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: How many are at planning stage?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: Six hundred on the two that have commenced.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: I have a final question for Mr. John McCarthy, on land acquisition. Through the land aggregation, LAG, scheme, the Department is dealing with a series of bad land deals. Notwithstanding that, there is a definitive need for land acquisition in certain counties, especially the commuter counties. Mr. John McCarthy was kind enough to supply a table on what is in council ownership throughout...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 10 - Funding and Oversight of Approved Housing Bodies
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government
2017 Financial Statements - Housing Agency (25 Oct 2018) Shane Cassells: Is it 700 in local authority ownership or in State ownership?