Results 19,601-19,620 of 26,924 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We are not getting the straight reality of what this legislation means. I acknowledge it is positive that people will go on to a differential rent scheme. It is preferable to the sham fiasco and waste of money that is rent allowance. However, the Minister of State is arguing that being in a HAPS arrangement, where one is a tenant of a private landlord, albeit in a deferential rent scheme,...

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: This Bill states that one will be deemed to be appropriately housed.

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Section 37 states that the provision of housing assistance under this Part shall be deemed to be an appropriate form of social housing support for a household.

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister of State's departmental officials confirmed to the committee today that people in that situation will be off the housing list. She tried to cover over that by saying they can apply for a transfer but one can only apply to a local authority for a transfer if one is deemed to be in overcrowded accommodation or to have a medical priority. One cannot apply for a transfer because...

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Some of us believe that this Bill will turn a housing disaster into a complete catastrophe for social housing and homelessness. The Minister of State obviously disputes that and believes it is workable. I do not see how it can be workable, when all the evidence points in the opposite direction, to move towards reliance on private landlords who are jacking up rents and running away from...

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Those are big areas.

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister of State says that people have to be housed in their area of choice, but the problem is that local authority areas are often very big. The Dún Laoghaire-Dalkey list covers a very large area. One end of it could be far away from where children go to school at the other end. While the local authority might say it is in a person's area of choice, in reality it is not...

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: There has to be a reasonable proximity to a school where children are involved. In addition, there should be access to family support networks for elderly, disabled or ill people. Those criteria should be written into the legislation so that a local authority would have to consider them in deciding what is a reasonable offer. Housing departments will sometimes take such matters into...

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Even before the introduction of the housing assistance payment scheme, there was often a significant problem where tenants sought transfers or were made offers where those offers were felt to be completely unworkable from the point of view of the tenant but were deemed to be acceptable by the local authority, particularly where matters to do with proximity to school for children or proximity...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Sure. I only got six or seven minutes but everybody else got 15 minutes.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: How does the Taoiseach respond to these serious allegations, given the state of the public finances in this country?

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We use the Irish tax code.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: What if it is in the Cayman Islands, which have nothing?

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I have just come from a meeting of the Joint Sub-Committee on Global Taxation, to which Professor Jim Stewart was giving evidence. He was asked by Deputies from various parties to back up his assertion that the real corporate tax rate in this country - the so-called effective rate - is only 2.2%. He was categorical about it. Whereas the Government claims the corporate tax rate is 11.9%,...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 7. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the OECD meeting in Paris in February; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24240/14]

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 8. To ask the Taoiseach if he discussed Ireland's corporation tax regime in the context of the OECD plans to tackle base erosion and profit shifting at the OECD meeting in Paris in February; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24241/14]

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Current Housing Demand: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Is Mr. Layde aware of the shock people who have been on a housing waiting list for 12 or 15 years will feel when they discover that because they have been included in the HAP scheme they have been removed from the list? People have a right to feel very angry and cheated when they are removed from a housing list on which they have been for 12 years and have no chance of getting a council...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Current Housing Demand: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The difference is that they will be off the housing waiting list. A person on the list in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown has a number and knows where he or she is on the list. Although a person with a number between 300 and 500 is consigned to ten years of waiting, he or she knows that at the end of it he or she will rise up the list and receive a council house. If a person is included in the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Current Housing Demand: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I do not mean to be confrontational, but I have very little time. I understand all of the points Mr. Layde has made. I accept that the council having some obligation to tenants is better. Let us call a spade a spade. People who have been on the housing waiting list for years and who previously had an entitlement to a council house will be removed from the list and no longer have that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Current Housing Demand: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: In a situation where rents are going through the roof and landlords are pulling out of RAS arrangements when the terms are up or even before, what on earth makes Mr. Layde think thousands of them will sign up to permanent or semi-permanent arrangements with local authorities at the lower rents the HAP will require? Is that not a cloud cuckoo land fantasy?