Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to once again address the House on the issue of the report of the

Working Group to Examine Defects in Housing and to inform Deputies of the steps this Government is taking to provide support to homeowners who find themselves in a difficult situation through no fault of their own.

I thank Deputies across the House in this regard. We will sometimes have charged discussions or disagreements regarding policy, but on this issue, in the main, we have been able to work constructively together. The next phase is important. It involves moving to a Government decision, implementation and starting to help people to get their homes and their lives back together. I fully acknowledge the difficulties homeowners and residents of many apartments and duplexes are facing, and the stress caused when defects arise in relation to their buildings and where there have been many incidences of failures and non-compliance concerns coming to light in apartment buildings. This is particularly the case with many of those built during the building boom.

Many of these are in my constituency. I know constituents, residents and friends who have been living with this awful situation. I said that as Minister I would grasp the nettle on this issue and that the Government would as well. We are doing this. For the information of the House, earlier this week I hosted a webinar with residents affected right across the country. We had more than 290 participants. I thank the Construction Defects Alliance, CDA, and the Apartment Owners Network, AON, for facilitating this meeting where I was able to directly answer questions from residents from across the country. I thought it was useful and I will continue to do this. I have committed to another session with residents in the first quarter of next year.

As I mentioned, thousands of residents across the country, and we estimate about 100,000 properties nationwide, including thousands of residents in Dublin Fingal, the area I represent, have been affected by issues such as construction defects or fire defects. I have worked and campaigned on this issue since the first day I came into the Dáil way back in 2007. In Opposition, when I was Fianna Fáil's spokesperson on housing, I called for a scheme to be put in place and for us to work together to help residents, not just to put their homes back together but to help them to put their lives back together. That is why, in the programme for Government negotiations, we sought and received a firm and clear commitment that the nettle of construction defects would be grasped and dealt with once and for all. This commitment was further supported by actions contained in the Housing for All policy.

In this regard, I established the working group to examine defects in housing. This working group was chaired by Séamus Neely, former CEO of Donegal County Council, and its membership included professionals from a range of backgrounds, including fire safety, engineering, architecture, chartered surveying and the legal and public sectors. In recognition of the importance of hearing the voices of those directly affected by this issue, two members of the group were nominated by the Construction Defects Alliance and the Apartment Owners Network. I take this opportunity to commend all those, including my officials, who worked so hard via the working group to prepare a most comprehensive report in what was a tight timeframe. The working group set its own terms of reference. I did not set a timeframe for it either. It concluded its work in an efficient and professional manner.

As I said, the working group set its own terms of reference and it focused specifically on fire safety, structural safety and water ingress defects in purpose-built apartment buildings, including duplexes, constructed between 1991 and 2013. I received the report of the working group at the end of July. Given the importance of its work, I did not pressure the working group into finishing the report sooner or speeding it up. It needed the time to consider the scope and scale of the issue.

The level of consultation and engagement that the working group undertook with stakeholders and interested parties here and abroad was extensive. As a result, the report is rich in data regarding the nature and scale of defects, as well as the cost of addressing them. Some 28,000 homes participated in a survey undertaken by the working group. As a result, for the first time, we have a proper handle on the type of defects, their scale and scope, and the breakdown within that context.

The report found what many of us present know to be the case, that fire defects are the most prevalent of the defects. It is estimated that between 40% and 70% of the properties are affected by fire defects. Water ingress affected between 20% and 50%, while structural defects, though still very important, affected somewhat fewer, estimated at between 5% and 25%. We now have a handle on the average cost, although I am aware that some residents are being presented with bills well in excess of that amount. The average cost, as far as we could estimate, is approximately €25,000 per unit, which means a potential cost to the Exchequer of between €1.5 billion and €2.5 billion.

I am acutely aware that many residents have already remediated their homes. Up to 12% of the properties have been fixed and made safe and over a third of other affected properties are either in the process of being fixed or work is being planned to undertake that remediation.

I am now moving on to implement many of the recommendations contained in the report of the working group. First, on 27 September, I brought a memorandum to inform Government of the content of the report and of the next steps that I plan to take.

Second, I established an interdepartmental and agency group to consider the recommendations contained in the working group's report and to elaborate on the options for the potential sources of financial support and the potential channels for deployment contained in the report. I received the final report of this group yesterday.

Third, an advisory group has been established to develop a code of practice, in the context of the Fire Services Acts, to provide guidance to building professionals and local authority building control services and local authority fire services.

In addition to the development of this code of practice, a separate code of practice has been developed as a result of a specific recommendation in the 2018 Fire Safety in Ireland report. This code of practice, which is due for publication shortly, will provide a framework for the ongoing management and maintenance of buildings with respect to fire safety and contains guidance specific to buildings containing flats and apartments. It will provide for clarity and consistency of approach nationally in making reasonable provisions for occupant safety. It is expected that this code of practice will be of assistance to building owners and operators in providing standard guidance and advice on the range of duties with respect to fire safety. It will complement and provide updated guidance to the existing suite of guidance documents published by my Department.

Fourth, my Department is engaging with the Housing Agency for the provision of advice in relation to implementation of the recommendations of the working group's report.

In parallel to the steps I have outlined, I have met and corresponded with homeowner representative groups such as, as I have mentioned, the Construction Defects Alliance and Apartment Owners Network and, indeed, residents from specific estates, and I am committed to keeping them updated on progress. As I mentioned earlier, we had a well-attended webinar earlier this week with nearly 300 residents and residents' groups attending. That was a useful exchange of views but it also further broke down the scale of the complexities of different situations in which people find themselves. I thank all those who shared those stories with me. The feedback that we received from that meeting will form part of a further submission that we are working on.

I have heard that the excess levels on insurance policies held by residents of some apartment blocks are set so high that it nearly deems those apartments uninsured. I have had a positive initial engagement with Insurance Ireland in this regard and will continue this engagement as matters progress. I will also be engaging with the banks, and particularly mortgage lenders, as we move through the process.

It was an important engagement with Insurance Ireland to inform it as to where Government is going with this because we would like to see the sector taking a different view with regard to insurance as it can see that a Government scheme on remediation work will start. I also advised residents of that at the meeting on Monday.

I am also engaging with the Housing Agency in regard to the provision of advice in relation to implementation of the recommendations of the report.

I intend bringing a further memorandum to the Government next week setting out proposals in more detail. I wish to assure residents of affected apartments and duplexes that the Government will help. We will help them to get their homes and lives back together, but we need a robust scheme. It will take a little time to bring the legislation required to underpin such a scheme forward. I advised Deputies of that last week also.

In the meantime, as we discussed in the House last week, there will be interim measures we can take, subject to Cabinet approval, and we should take them. I do not want people holding off on work they have planned already, particularly on the fire safety side, in waiting for a scheme to come through. In fairness, all Deputies across the House, and my Government colleagues, fully understand the need to have a scheme that is grounded in primary legislation. However, there are interim measures that we can take and I will be bringing forward proposals in that regard to Cabinet next week. The hundreds, if not thousands, of people right across the country whom I have met in respect of construction defects deserve that response and help from the Government and they will get it. I assure them of that.

As I mentioned, we need bespoke legislation. We cannot, although there have been other suggestions in that regard, use existing legislation. I do not believe that is the way forward. I appreciate the suggestion, having said that, but we can work together on bespoke legislation in this regard. I will be seeking the continued co-operation and support of Members opposite when we bring forward that legislation. The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage will have an important role in that. The members on the committee are experienced in this issue too. That will help the deliberation on and the structure of the scheme. We can make sure that it is robust and it moves forwards.

There are other elements within this. It is not only a question of how we structure the scheme. We also must be clear about how it will be rolled out and how we categorise the different defects within it, such as in the case of the different apartment blocks and estates that are affected. We will do so using the principle of remediating the worst first. We have to do that, with a particular focus on fire safety. We will then have to deal with the issue of certification. When works are carried out - we need them to be carried out by experienced and qualified professionals - it needs to be certified. That certification needs to be accepted, particularly within the insurance sector and the banking sector. We will need to ensure that when work is done, it is properly certified so that homes can be properly insured and, should a homeowner so wish, be sold with the value of that home reinstated.

As Minister, I am absolutely committed to bringing this scheme forward, getting Cabinet approval for it, moving on interim measures that can assist people now, and then moving forward with the legislation to put the scheme on a solid basis from which we can move on. I will continue to make good on the commitment we put into the programme for Government to tackle this issue once and for all, make people's homes safe and allow them to get back on with their lives. I campaigned for that in opposition and I am now in a position to do something about it as Minister.

I welcome the opportunity to debate this matter this afternoon. I look forward to updating colleagues in the Dáil again following Cabinet approval, should I receive same next week. I suggest that early in the new session we return to this where we can look at the recommendations and work it through. We will let the joint Oireachtas committee get involved then. I am anxious that we move on interim measures in advance of a scheme so that people can continue with, or go ahead and do, scheduled work but there will be a particular focus on fire safety. There are other important issues, such as water ingress and, obviously, structural defects. We must look at the fire safety piece for people's safety first by way of the interim measures.

As part of my memorandum next week, I will also be bringing for discussion to Government the issue of retrospection. Between 12% and 14% of properties have already been remediated and they are fixed.

We have to make sure they are properly certified and the work is done. We take it that this is the case. This issue came forward very strongly in the working group's report. I know of residents in my constituency who have fixed their own homes at great cost to them and their management companies through substantially increased levies. We also need to help them. We must focus on work on apartments and homes not remediated, particularly from a safety perspective. I look forward to the contributions from Deputies on the Opposition and the Government side. I confirm I will bring forward a memorandum to government next week at Cabinet.

See this speech in context