Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is a meeting of the Construction Industry Federation tonight and a meeting of the Irish Concrete Federation tomorrow. They are considering proposals that I have brought to their attention today arising from my engagement with the financial institutions. The State does not have money to deal with this problem in the same way as we would have had in the good days. That is no use to the unfortunate people who are directly affected by pyrite. However, I am trying to provide the fund to do something for people for the first time. I cannot have an open-ended system or else we will not get the money from the financial institution. We have to provide the funds in some way - from the insurance, financial and construction sectors - in order to deal with this problem once and for all on behalf of the consumer.

I am telling the committee today - I thought it would be good news but maybe not for some people - that we have made progress with the financial institutions. They are now voluntarily prepared to participate in funding a scheme. The construction sector has not yet said so, but it will be considering those proposals over the next 24 hours.