Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To bring us back to basics, if any of us buy anything and we take it home and it is defective, the following day we bring it back to the shop and we either get it replaced or get our money back. This is a basic rule but not for the single most expensive purchase in people's lives. It beggars belief that we are even having this discussion. I am not at all criticising anybody here because this is a useful discussion but we are still discussing the fact there is not a proper remedy. To summarise for members, the safe as houses report recommended a one-stop-shop to address this issue whereby once people discovered they had potential latent defects there would be a body they could go to, which would be a free information service that would tell them exactly what the law stated and what the liabilities were, and it would provide them with advice. This does not exist today.

In the first instance, the principle would be that the developer or builder responsible for the defects has to pay. This is the fundamental principle of the proposition. Not unlike the Residential Tenancies Board, the one-stop-shop redress board would have the ability to mediate between the homeowners and the developer and-or adjudicate where mediation was not possible.

One of the issues, of course, is that some companies are still trading as the original entities responsible for defects but others have closed companies and opened new companies while some have gone bust. There is a legal question, and it would be great if the Government and Attorney General could look at it, as to what extent individuals still trading but under different names may be subject to that adjudication regime. We do not know the answer to this but it is crucial. Where developers are still trading they should be forced to pay if they are not willing to do so voluntarily. Where the developers are not trading and have gone bust, and are no longer living in or are out of the State, a fund will have to be there to be drawn on. Ms Ní Fhloinn rightly said landlords can already write off the capital cost of remediation against their tax liabilities. The question that Senator Seery Kearney rightly raises is easily resolvable because we can continue this regime and the grant aid would be for private home owners.

One of the difficulties with the loan is that the developer walks away. He or she gets off scot-free and this has to be an issue or a focus. We are not arguing as advocates of this that the taxpayer should pick up all the tab. In fact, the idea of the redress fund would be for the taxpayer to pick up as little of the tab as possible.

I want to go back to the Dáil debates I mentioned earlier. There were two reasons some Government and Opposition Deputies supported the light-touch regulatory regime that Ms Ní Fhloinn rightly said was proposed following the Stardust tragedy. The first was that our local authorities did not have enough staff. Repeatedly, we were told by Ministers from two parties, because the legislation took almost a decade to pass, and by backbenchers, that local authorities could not take on the burden of doing the inspections and that they were not properly resourced. The second was that it would be too expensive for builders, that it would add exponentially to the cost of building and, as a consequence, that it was not a good thing. To re-emphasise, a small number of backbenchers from a number of parties stated when something went wrong the homebuyer would pick up the tab. This is why the State cannot say it has no responsibility. People legislated for a regime that was inadequate.

. Ms Ní Fhloinn may remember a very important legal decision that was taken by the High Court on latent defects in Maynooth.

This was where a receiver was ordered by the courts to pay for the remediation works with proceeds from future sales. I ask Ms Ní Fhloinn to talk a little bit about that, please, because that was a significant judgment which has relevance to this. I am conscious that Ms Holland has not come in at all and, as she has a significant level of experience, I would like her to be given the opportunity to do so. She is one of those people who has paid for defects that she did not cause and if she can share her thoughts and feelings with the committee, that would be useful.