Mr. Bryan Maher:

We advocate a public examination of apartment blocks with regard to defects. We are very aware of several examples of directors of management companies who try to manage the story in-house because they are afraid that if they publicise it in any way, their property values will fall and their fellow owners will be on their backs. They are dealing with serious stress. A particular example was where there were ordinary people on one side of the table while developers and their solicitors and so on were on the other side. They are trying to negotiate a settlement or agreement to fix defects. However, there is an imbalance of power here. People are manfully battling on their own with this issue. We were asked how many cases we were aware of. We are contacted constantly about the issue but most people try to manage this in-house because they do not want their names on the front of local or even national papers. I assure the committee that the issue is widespread. We need some State support to have a public discussion on it and to pull some numbers on the level of defects nationally rather than to have individuals step up on a voluntary basis as directors of management companies to deal with such serious issues.