Ms Deirdre Ní Fhloinn:

I would be happy to do that. On the previous occasion I was before this committee I specifically raised the fact that there was not even a helpline that people could call with these problems. In my experience, taking the example of apartment developments, when these defects are discovered, and we have heard from Ms Cottier about the prevalence of those defects, all those management companies retain their own professional advice. They will engage Scott Murphy Building Surveyors or one of the firms or people involved in this field. They will find out what has to be done. They will hold meetings with residents and tell residents about the scale of the problem. I have been to several of these meetings. The process is entirely repetitive. They will explain that they are taking legal advice and that the developers have gone bust. There might be a receiver in the picture but, as explained, it is likely that the receiver will not have to discharge the cost of rectifying those defects. There are some proceeds of sale of units in development.

To put that in context from the perspective of homeowners, with one of the developments I am aware of in south Dublin a receiver was appointed to the developer. The development had been left half finished. The residents had been living in a development with hoardings and unfinished sites for a period of years. The receiver appointed by NAMA had started to complete the development and was marketing the homes for sale. Those homes were going to be sold and there was going to be a return to the State. The residents of that development were watching all of this from their windows knowing that, in their case, they were struggling even to find the funds to pay for the assessment work that would have to be done to determine the remedial works necessary for their development, which is quite an exercise in itself.

I absolutely sympathise and feel the frustration of owners because this is a problem that calls out for a nationwide response.

Exactly as Deputy O'Donoghue said, there is no need for each owner's management company to reinvent the wheel each time. The Construction Defects Alliance and Apartment Owners Network are voluntary organisations that have gone in to fill the gap. The have done so because of a failure of leadership and because there is not a centralised resource, provided by local authorities or the Government. There has been a consistent response but the problem has been one for private individuals and the people they sold their homes to. One of the main findings in my PhD research was that homeowners really had no power at all in the transactions. They were represented by solicitors, but the solicitors were going through a conveyancing process that follows a particular format and is not really equipped to identify the problems. The solicitor will advise that one should retain one's own surveyor but, as Ms Cottier said, surveyors were not able to open up internal finishes to find out whether fire-stopping had been done properly. Therefore, people really lacked power in the relationship. People buying their first home have a great sense of hope and optimism and they do not enter the process believing they are taking on a risk that will be with them for the following ten or 20 years of their lives. That is the truth of it, however. This has been occurring in a context in which builders and developers have been insulated, by the legal system, from the risks related to what they build.

I would really like committee members to understand that while there has been regulatory change, the circumstances that gave us all the defective apartments are largely unchanged from a legal point of view. There has been some regulatory reform but some would call this reform industry led and essentially comprising self-certification by the industry. I encourage members to read the evidence being given to the Grenfell inquiry to really get a sense of what happens when industry is left to police itself. We do not allow other important industries to regulate themselves. The regulatory failure is still with us. Even a redress scheme, which is essential and very much welcome, must, in order to be effective, be accompanied by regulatory reform to address this. The pyrite scheme was a sticking plaster for a particular type of problem. The mica scheme is a sticking plaster for a particular type of problem but we must ask how many times we need to have such schemes and how much money we need to invest in solving these kinds of problems in an ad hocway without addressing the underlying problem, which is that we are not regulating our industry properly and robustly or providing legal remedies to home buyers.