Dr. Martina Cleary:

Especially with regard to pyrite and sulphate attack, which I know is also in Donegal, access to the core testing is essential. That will be removed in the new Bill. It has been proffered as the cheaper option that will take away the €7,000 bill which was prohibitive to owners. That should never have been prohibitive in the first place. It should have been provided in a timely manner and up front. We need a variety of things in this country. We need independent laboratories. It is absolutely unthinkable that tests have to be sent abroad, because we believe that the laboratories in this country are somehow compromised in terms of the autonomy of the results coming back. There needs to be more independent research done as well.

The short answer is that we need to retain some kind of core-testing mechanism where the homeowners have the right to appoint their own engineer who will work on their behalf and has access to the results. That has been essential for us. If we did not have that, as I know Limerick did not, we would have no ground on which to stand to see what is happening and understand and interpret it. If one puts that completely into the housing authority's hands, one is putting all of the control of diagnosis of a house and remediation options completely at the discretion of the Government.