Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Ní Fhloinn, Ms Cottier, Mr. Scott and everybody else who has helped shape this discussion this morning. This is an important issue and I am pleased that we have strong commitments in the programme for Government on bringing forward law reform to improve the legal remedies for home owners dealing with defects, to assist owners of latent defect properties by identifying options for those impacted and to address low-cost, long-term finances.

Construction defects are serious issues and affect tens of thousands of home owners in 80 different developments across the country. I am acutely aware of that because I am one of those people living in one of those developments. Yesterday, I packed up my home, laid down dust sheets and temporarily moved out to facilitate fire safety works. As we speak, there are builders in my home dissecting our ceilings to make the apartment I live in safe. Those works are urgent, essential and will counteract fire safety construction defects.

I am a renter so, while fire safety has been of personal concern to me since I first learned of this, I have not had the financial burden of paying upfront to rectify these defects. My landlords and my neighbours have and that is wrong. They purchased their apartments on the understanding they were finished to the highest and, most important, safest spec. As Ms Cottier said, defects like these have come to have a significant impact on homeowners through no fault of their own. It is clear that the regulation or self-regulation of the construction industry has failed them and, therefore, it has failed us as a nation. We saw that when it came to pyrite and we see it now when it comes to fire safety, one of the most important aspects of construction.

Homeowners across the country have acted as quickly as they could by saving, borrowing or investing to make their home safe. I agree with Ms Cottier that whatever financial supports we put in place to support homeowners in this situation need to be retrospective. The people who acted early are the people who did the right thing at the earliest possible time, at huge personal cost and inconvenience. The working group is the best way of getting under the hood of this issue, not just in terms of shaping the redress scheme, but also in terms of making recommendations on how to avoid future construction defects. This Government has committed to delivering record levels of homes across the country in the coming years.

It is imperative we make sure those homes are built to the safest specification. I would like to learn more from the witnesses about the redress scheme they propose, how soft loans and tax breaks would work, the likely cost of such a scheme and how it would be funded, and the role insurance companies would play in funding works as we move forward and also retrospectively.