Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is not for me to decide the logistics and operation of the committee - I would not dare do that - but it would be more appropriate to have officials or an official from the Department here. There is such a thing as getting a feel for the committee and you do not get it if officials from the Department of housing are in the Custom House listening online. They will not get a feel for what is going on in this room. That is something that should be taken from this. I have a number of questions but who am I asking? If somebody is listening in the Custom House, we need to find out the timeframe for the review of the scheme. It is obvious there are many changes required and many deficits in the scheme. They have been articulated well today.

I was reflecting coming up from Donegal today that we keep saying the same thing over and over. I am reminded of a parishioner of mine who said "When all's said and done, there's a lot more said than done".

I will provide the specific example of a homeowner in the middle of building his new house. He has an outstanding mortgage of €130,000. By the time he is finished, all the extra costs of demolition, works up to the subfloor, putting in a new foundation and all the ancillary costs and storage costs, as mentioned by one of the Mayo contributors, will have left him with an outstanding mortgage of €300,000. If anybody listening to the committee from outside of the counties represented here – Dr. Cleary mentioned tests being done in Tipperary - thinks this is a giveaway scheme, they are living on a different planet. Imagine being in your 50s with kids grown up and ready for university and finding you have an outstanding mortgage of €130,000 on a house that does not exist any more but which does not go away. He will add €170,000 to it, which will increase his monthly payment by €1,500. Imagine the trauma for that family. That is the message the campaign group has been trying to reinforce year after year and there is still a deep misunderstanding about the scheme.

This is a humanitarian crisis. There will be a public inquiry. It is in Europe. This will be the single biggest public inquiry the State has ever seen and the Government keeps coming back saying it is throwing such and such a figure at it. That is not the point. The point is this trauma has been compounded over not one but two decades.

There are issues with mortgageability even after the work is done. I know the subcommittee works closely with Patrick Sharkey and the group in Donegal. Somebody mentioned accountability today. There is no accountability. The symbolism of having not even one official from the Department of Housing here today is loud.

This is a health issue. The Department of Health should be involved in this. This is having an effect on people's health. It is intergenerational. People in their 70s have to rock up to a bank or credit union asking for a loan and be told they are too old. They do not have the capacity to get credit. It is an OPW issue. As Deputy Mac Lochlainn knows, there was a housing estate affected by the floods in Buncrana in 2017. Nine houses were affected by floods and are on a floodplain; they came up with a proposal. Officials from the OPW, in fairness to them, came to Buncrana to a public meeting. There is a common sense solution there but what will the Department of housing insist? It will insist on doing up those houses on a floodplain rather than relocation. It is a Department of Education issue. Donegal has submitted a proposal to that Department for support for young people in secondary school in Donegal. It is a Department of enterprise issue, given the amount of businesses that have defective blocks. It is a Department of agriculture issue because there are piggeries in my constituency with defective blocks. It is a Department of environment issue because some people trying to access SEAI grants are hitting brick walls.

I said last week in the Dáil that this is too big an issue for the Department of housing and is not just about defective blocks. There is an overall responsibility and it has to start at the very top. It has to be led by the Department of the Taoiseach, bringing in the relevant Secretaries General from each of those Departments and others I have not mentioned. This has to be dealt with. People are suffering and cannot deal with this issue. All of a sudden, they have to become engineers and architects and deal with contractors. Not only are they dealing with credit deficits, but they are also trying to figure out something they do not have the requisite skills for.

I acknowledge the groups for coming in. I know the work they are doing. We as politicians get the individual cases that come directly to us. I do not know how the groups try to rationalise all the complexity of this but one word that keeps coming up is "trauma". There is trauma here and there will be justice but it is a shame it will have to wait until it is too late for many people.