Ms Hone takes the view, and I agree, that 90% of people believe that nobody wants to do anything about it and it will go on forever and that we cannot do anything about it. My first suggestion would be a fund into which the contributors would include, for instance, the insurance companies and the construction industry, local authorities, engineers including Engineers Ireland, and everybody who was involved in construction, acquisition of materials and the building of a house in any part of the country, whether a scheme or a single house. In saying that, I acknowledge the number of quite small builders who were dutiful and who went about it their own way and resolved the problems at their own expense. But they had insurance to cover themselves. We know that. But there were other cases where the insurance companies ran away from their responsibilities. Once that was allowed to happen the first time it became the order of the day. That was it. I suggest a fund as a solution. It could be a profit-making fund over a period but in order to correct the problem that exists now, something must be done. Otherwise we will still be here talking about the same thing in ten years because we are trying to catch up.

I have not mentioned all the people who could be involved. As I said, I was involved in the construction of a couple of hundred houses in that period through a co-op. We enforced the strictest measures to apply at all times. Thankfully, none of those houses was affected. The architects, engineers and all involved had to pass the original test. For those who say that this could continue forever and they are still doing it, there is a very simple way to find out - you do a test, a concrete test or a cube test and all the other tests. If you visit a place once, then that is it. They do not supply any more. If there is defective product there, in order to ensure that the State does not have to continue remedying something forever over which it had adequate control in the first place, then we have to do that.

There are individual householders in Donegal, the west coast and all over the country, including Kildare, who were looking at a serious defect in their property and nobody was willing to resolve the problem so the State moved in. The State should not have moved in, that is the problem. The system should have been able to correct itself at that time. If it had done so by enforcing rules and regulations that were effective straight away then we would not have an ongoing problem and it is the ongoing problem that I want to try to deal with. I know that what people here are saying is true but I do not like to hear people say that this will be going on for many years and implying that there are guys down the track we do not know about yet who will come on stream in the future and it will be worse than we have seen so far.

Apart from the fund to deal with the existing situation, I am suggesting that we set in place sufficient and rigorous impositions now that prevent this from happening on an ongoing basis. We need to stop it, full stop. Ms Hone is absolutely right about that. I know the construction industry are responsible people and I have always recognised that. They have always stood up to it. The fact is, everyone ran away from this. Everyone was going to be responsible for a start and then nobody wanted to be responsible.

Finally, on the apartments, it is a disgrace that people who were ill prepared for it found themselves having to buy a house or apartment that five or ten years later has major defects. They are structural defects for which somebody is responsible and if those people do not have to pony up and contribute in some shape or form then this will continue. It is carte blanche for everyone to get involved. Why does everyone not get involved? Because the State will eventually pick up the bill and that way they are guaranteed. They are not guaranteed and they should not be guaranteed. There is a simple way to deal with that as Ms Hone said - bring the horse to water. If the horse does not want to drink then the water is taken away. Simple as that. We have to do something really serious and responsible about it. We need to end it now for existing faults and future potential faults. I grew up in the local authority under an engineer which I am sure the representatives from the construction industry will remember, John Carrick. He had a very rigid policy in relation to construction with cube tests, testing the material and the construction of a roof, for instance. If it did not comply with regulations then it was a case of "Sorry" and it came down again. You could say you cannot afford that but you will have to afford more if you do not address it. It is a question of facing reality. We have kicked this around for the last number of years and have avoided dealing with it straight-on as we should. If we do not do it now, then in ten years we will still be trying to catch up and it will never be resolved.