Mr. Michael Doherty:

The first time we saw anything to do with this was last Tuesday when the general scheme was presented. It took us by surprise. We had a 61-page document to go through. It was Thursday of last week before we got all our issues discovered, raised and tabled. This is very recent - less than a week. It is quite a complex issue when it becomes legal. We have sought legal advice on it and we are still awaiting that legal advice. So far, we have been led to believe that at a high level this is something to put the frighteners on people chasing any claim from anybody. We are sorry to see that part.

There has always been talk about chasing the perpetrators but it has never found its way on to anything in black and white that we have seen. If it has, it has certainly not been pursued with any vigour. In the document again the homeowner is the easiest port of call. The homeowner seems to be the target as opposed to the quarries that allowed it or as opposed to the local authorities and their failure to regulate the standards that would have avoided this disaster in the first place.

As homeowners, we feel victimised. We feel that we are an easy target. The bigger businesses, banks and insurance companies are not being pursued with any vigour as far as we can see. In black and white in the general scheme, there we are, named again. It contains language such as jail sentences of five years and fines of €50,000 for anything deemed fraudulent. All the language we are seeing here is pointing to homeowners and how to manage these people who seem to be looking for something for nothing. I go back to the simple point: all we want is what we had and what we paid for.