Results 341-360 of 1,185,846 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Joe O'Brien OR speaker:Dara Calleary OR speaker:Stephen Donnelly OR speaker:Joe Flaherty OR speaker:Seán Fleming OR speaker:Darragh O'Brien OR speaker:Brendan Smith OR speaker:Imelda Munster OR speaker:Michael Ring OR speaker:Mattie McGrath OR speaker:Carol Nolan OR speaker:John McGuinness OR speaker:Robert Troy OR speaker:Frank Feighan OR speaker:Damien English OR speaker:Emer Higgins OR speaker:Niall Collins OR speaker:John Brady OR speaker:Seán Ó Fearghaíl OR speaker:Cormac Devlin OR speaker:Róisín Shortall OR speaker:Denis Naughten OR speaker:Jackie Cahill OR speaker:Thomas Pringle OR speaker:Mary Lou McDonald OR speaker:Danny Healy-Rae OR speaker:Catherine Murphy OR speaker:Alan Kelly OR speaker:Seán Ó Fearghaíl9 OR speaker:Simon Harris OR speaker:Mary Butler OR speaker:Seán Ó Fearghaíl5 OR speaker:Joan Collins OR speaker:James Browne OR speaker:Michael Creed OR speaker:Violet-Anne Wynne)

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024)

Catherine Murphy: I understand. I am referring to the one before that, which was in 2022. It was not on open sale at that stage and it was offered for sale to the OPW in advance of it subsequently going on the open market with a closed bid process.

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024)

Catherine Murphy: The concern was that there could be a hostile owner, and essentially this is what has subsequently transpired. Looking at the history of it in terms of it being a strategic purchase, would that have changed the valuation on it?

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024)

Catherine Murphy: Obviously, the OPW must look at valuations. We are acutely aware of value for money. Would the valuation have been different if it was regarded as a strategic purchase as opposed to land that was zoned for agriculture or for amenity?

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024)

Catherine Murphy: I will make one final point on this. It is not clear that the OPW knows what it owns there either, in terms of another access in. Money was spent servicing the area into the farmyard. It is not clear that the OPW has done a huge amount of work in looking at alternatives. I will leave it at that. People are losing faith that the OPW is really serious about finding a solution here.

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024)

Catherine Murphy: We will move on to Deputy Ó Cathasaigh.

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024)

Catherine Murphy: A lot of what we talked about earlier, and this is typical of the public accounts committee, is money that has already been spent.

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024)

Catherine Murphy: We are in a rare position where some money has been spent, but the bulk of it has not. We are in that rare position where a mistake has not been made that we are back here talking about in five years' time. It does not seem that is the approach being taken here, given the legal advice, how the legal advice was followed, how the OPW is on the hook and that there is no sponsoring Department....

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024)

Catherine Murphy: Mr. Conlon may be back here, but like others, I will not be back after the election. This is one I have pursued constantly. I have been told there was no extra cost for car parking. I think the reply might have been Jesuitical in that it was not associated with Scott House but it was associated with one of the other units not accommodated there and which was previously accommodated-----

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024)

Catherine Murphy: That is fine. I turn to Deputy McAuliffe's point about the bike shed. Like everyone else, I echo that is something that comes up routinely. In my area it comes up in the context of wasting that amount of money on a bike shed while the ball was dropped so badly on something of such importance as Castletown House. I have raised this on the past two occasions the OPW has been in. Is it...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

Holly Cairns: The figure the Taoiseach gives of 40,000 homes is disputed by the ERSI and the Central Bank. We know commencements are one thing and completions are another thing altogether. For the first six months of this year, completions are down nearly 10%. That is the reality. He mentioned the help-to-buy scheme. On this, the ESRI has stated that if this scheme was scrapped, house prices would...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

Seán Ó Fearghaíl: Thank you, Deputy.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

Holly Cairns: -----not banning the bulk-buying of homes, not addressing these issues has not worked.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

Simon Harris: There is no balance to the Deputy's argument; this is the point. I am able to stand here and talk to the electorate on their doorsteps and point to progress and also point to the more there is to do. The Deputy just wants to dismiss any of the progress, as though those extra 128,000 homes do not exist. I am interested in what she is saying now because she has set out her stall if she is to...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

Simon Harris: I am glad the Deputy picked up my election hints anyway. I thought they were rather subtle.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

(Interruptions).

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

Simon Harris: There goes the surprise. It is a serious issue the Deputy is raising and I do appreciate that. We have significantly increased the level of supports to our student nurses. We did that, as she rightly said, arising from the debate around Covid and post Covid in respect of the very important role being played by student nurses. I do not have the specific figures in front of me but I think...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

Holly Cairns: The Taoiseach has confirmed we will have an election in a matter of weeks, and with that, this Government’s disastrous handling of the housing crisis will be on the ballot. A vote for this Government will be a vote for record house prices, record rents, record homelessness and over 500,000 adults living in their childhood bedrooms. Every week, this crisis deepens and deteriorates....

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2024)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Cairns. I definitely agree with the Deputy on one point, which is that politics and the next election certainly cannot be about who comes up with the biggest figure in terms of the number of homes they are going to deliver because the public will rightly see through that. People will be much more interested in the how. That is absolutely right. Deputy Cairns said...

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024)

Catherine Murphy: I understand that but there is no point in building a white elephant or building something for tens of millions of euro and then to discover that the people who are insisting that this be built do not have the wherewithal to put that kind of money into fitting it out. I would have thought that kind of clarity, the cost and the longevity of running it, given that this is a charity, would have...

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024)

Catherine Murphy: Can the committee see that legal advice?