Ms Yvonne Wylde:

I thank the committee for inviting us today and for the opportunity to explain a little more on this issue. It is important to remember that many of the experts in this case are engineers and Engineers Ireland is represented on the committee that wrote IS 465.

It is also important to remember that if foundations are taken out, it causes additional problems for those who want to get their houses fixed. The question of removing foundations is a very serious one and has huge implications for the homeowner. While it has already been explained and I will not go over it again, in this case we do not want to rush to a decision about removing foundations where there is no evidence. As the engineer, Paul Forde, said today, Engineers Ireland has not provided any evidence. We have gone out to public tender looking for evidence and we have received none. The engineers have discussed this in committee, even though they were not asked to, and an amendment was issued by the expert panel that wrote the original report in 2019. Therefore, the engineers and the committees have discussed it and, at this point in time, there is no evidence. They are not happy that there is no proof that it is okay but there is no proof that it is not okay. As engineers, they feel obliged to make a reasonable judgment and, to do that, they need the data. In the absence of that data, they cannot make a decision.

While we acknowledge how important it is and we are very conscious of it, we think it would be wrong to make a quick decision that leads to foundations being removed, which would cause additional problems for everybody. I hope that helps.