Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I regret that I remain cynical about our builders, not just in the context of my past experience but also on foot of my current experience. About a month ago I visited a local authority building site where houses have been completed in the past couple of years. I visited a particular house the interior of which had been destroyed with condensation. The tenant had gone through numerous fights with the council and there were more battles when I got involved. We eventually discovered, as in the case 17 years ago, that a damp-proof course was not put into the house involved 17 months ago. The house was built in the wrong location and potentially it could flood regularly. I could not understand how the builder got away with that because it was disgraceful, shameful and unacceptable. The mother, who has five or six children to look after, has been left in a disgraceful state by a local authority that passed a totally unacceptable house. It has been left this way. There have been dehumidifiers in the house for a couple of months. They are on 24/7 in some of the bedrooms. She has been told that if this does not work the solution is to knock her house down. This is happening now. I have no doubt that when I look up the CIRI or the construction register the builders concerned will be on it. Will they be kicked out? I cannot believe something like this is still happening. That is the problem - the lack of credibility.

I acknowledge the major changes that have taken place. That lady should not have had to ring me because the house should never have been built. However, she should have been able to make a call to a one-stop shop independent authority to say, "There is something wrong with my house and I do not know what it is. Will you sort it out for me?", rather than having a long battle with the council, getting me involved and having all sorts of people coming and going, day and night. This is still the reality. Eternal vigilance is the price of peace, so there must be continuous vigilance in respect of all of these matters. I cannot understand a builder who would build a house, get a good price for it from the local authority but not put a damp-proof floor in it. It does not make sense, but that is what they did. It is callous and a disgrace. That will happen again and again unless we maintain what will be, in a way, a bureaucracy. It must be an independent one-stop shop to which a person can make a complaint and then it can come down like a ton of bricks on everybody concerned. The professional bodies should be involved as well. Johnny Murphy or whoever signed off on that house should get the bullet from his association. He could not professionally sign off on that house and say it was built properly, because it was not. That is the eternal problem we have.

I welcome Ms Ní Fhloinn's comments and those from Mr. O'Boyle. We must go further and look at best practice in other countries. However, the penalties should apply to builders in real time. They should be blacklisted. If some guy does this, he should be gone for all time. If he does that, he is not a fit person to build a house ever again.