Results 1-20 of 20 for in 'Dáil debates' segment:8898102

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I propose to take Questions Nos. 49 and 54 together. What does the Deputy mean by "capacity"? Does he mean numbers of people? Does he mean bricklayers, carpenters and plumbers?

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Yes.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Regardless of whether the State or the private sector was seeking to hire them, they were not available in the quantity we needed in recent years. That is the key point I am making to the Deputy. If they were not there to be hired, changing the nature of the employer would not have made any difference. What we are doing to build up capacity involves the steps that were taken by the then...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We are dealing with a housing emergency. Most people recognise that. I hope the Government does. We need to dramatically increase the amount of housing we build, in particular social and affordable housing. Recently, Goodbody Stockbrokers produced a report showing that there are only five builders in this country capable of building more than 500 houses per year while the majority of the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Ruairi Ó Murchú: We can allow an extra supplementary question because these questions are grouped.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: That is exactly what the Government is doing. How are we going to get more companies involved in the building of homes if Deputies like Deputy Boyd Barrett always take the view that any private sector company getting involved in the delivery of building a new home is suspicious? The Deputy sees it like that. On the one hand, he is lamenting that we do not have larger companies involved in...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: No, I am not suspicious. I can just see the facts for myself, as can everyone else, including the builders. Even they are saying this. We cannot deliver the necessary housing. Cairn Homes has said it. Goodbody Stockbrokers have said it. Builders do not have the capacity. By the way, they are not in the business of producing subsidised housing. They do not do that. What they are...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: This politics is performative for the Deputy. He knows our local authorities are building more homes. He knows more money is going into the local authorities to do this. He knows our delivery of social housing is increasing year after year. He is aware of the efforts being made, including in apprenticeship programmes, to make construction a more attractive career for people to go into....

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister stated that local authorities are delivering more housing. No, they are not. They are not building anything at all. They are commissioning private construction. I accept that is better than doing nothing when we do not have the capacity, but they are not actually building anything themselves, given that the State does not have any capacity. I wish the Minister would not...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: We are clutching at straws here. The Deputy is acknowledging that local authorities are building more homes.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: No. I said they were not building.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Is the Deputy acknowledging that local-----

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: They contract people to do it.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I have tonnes of social houses in my constituency. They are run by Dublin City Council. It might matter to the Deputy whether the private sector is recruited by a local authority-----

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I just said it was better than nothing.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: It might matter to the Deputy, but what about the person who is going into that home? We are trying to have a debate and I am giving the Deputy facts with which he is clearly uncomfortable. He does not like when I challenge the ideologies that he wraps around housing. If the local authority is using private plumbers and bricklayers and small to medium-sized construction companies to...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

National Development Plan

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 49. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform whether the Government has adequately considered the growing problem of labour and skills shortages in multiple sectors of the society and economy, including construction, healthcare, education, childcare and more, in the context of the National Development Plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17862/24]

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 54. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he is aware of the issues raised by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, in respect of the national development plan (details supplied), particularly in terms of capacity and resource constraints to deliver public housing, elder-care facilities and childcare and increase the number of hospital beds; his plans to address...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: These questions follow on from our earlier discussion and relate to what the Government is doing to build up our labour and skills capacity to deliver housing, in particular, but also some of the other key infrastructure we need. My point, given the Minister said he did not understand it, is not that everything the private sector does is wrong but that it simply does not have the capacity...