Mr. Conor O'Donnell:

I thank the Senator for her question. When I first started on the scheme in 2019, I was in disbelief that my house had pyrite. I had already spent €80,000 remediating it, having been told it had various problems. One of those was a loose roof, but that was not the issue. My gables were splitting and my roof was falling down. I replaced my windows and doors because they had all cracked and I could not open them anymore. I did not want to believe I had pyrite.

When I spoke to my friend, Ms Josephine Murphy, who is in attendance, she told me that I had pyrite and needed to get onto the scheme and get quotes from builders. In 2019, I was quoted €350,000 to rebuild my house. I am rebuilding my house this very second and my final bill will be €495,000. That is without any contingency. I am not building with blocks because I do not trust them. Once bitten, twice shy. I am building with ICF, which is a concrete product. My problem is that a levy on concrete products is coming in or is already in place – we do not know – but it will not be the quarries paying it. They are passing that levy on to us and we have to pay it. My demolition cost me €36,000. Before even laying a block, I spent €36,000 to get rid of the deleterious materials. I am a strong believer that when we say “deleterious materials”, they do not just include pyrite. There is a host of ingredients-----