James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for the outline of the scheme and indeed for the scheme itself which is very welcome. On one of the more positive aspects, as he has mentioned, I was concerned as to the retrospective application where some owners may have gone out on a limb and at their own cost, their own time and dime as they say. It may have been a struggle to do so but they took action themselves. It is very fair and right that they are included and that there is a retrospective application. I welcome that.

One of my questions, and I have experienced it myself in assisting homeowners, is where there are common areas, a shared terrace or roof or fire walling, boundary walls etc. that are impacted. I am not sure how the scheme applies to where homeowner one says they want to invoke the scheme and engage and homeowner two for whatever reason says they do not want workers coming in and are happy as they are. It seems a bit difficult and I am not sure how that is envisaged in the scheme.

Another question is in terms of a point of contact. There is an agency being established and I know the legislation still has to go through the Houses but who do people contact at this stage or in the near future if they have issues and want to begin to engage. They are two practical questions.

It is really important, and I know this is in the scheme, but what is the detail to ensure it does not happen again? We have seen bad practices and bad history play out of the last couple of decades and in the lifetime of the scheme and even before and probably after the period 1991 to 2013. What do we do to prevent it happening again? I know there are very welcome things like a register of tradesmen, but what about recourse? The Exchequer is on the hook all the time it seems for the remediation schemes and it is right the State should step in as a guarantor of last resort but what about the people who actually built these buildings, who developed them, worked on them, funded them, financed them and who advised on them? There were architects, consultants, planners etc. What is the recourse to them, to say they did the crime now do the time? How does that work and is it envisaged as part of this funding?

See this speech in context