Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will press this. The situation to date has been an abject failure. It has put huge costs on local authorities and the public. As Deputy Ó Broin said, it is the new residents who move into areas who make the largest investment of their lifetimes. They put huge resources and work very hard to buy a home and expect that the public areas in the development will be completed as per the planning permission. When a developer fails to do that, people can spend years and even decades trying to get that rectified. The big stumbling block is that the local authority does not want to draw down the bond because often the bond is completely insufficient.

It is fine that circular has issued, but it is good practice in terms of bonds to make sure they are index linked, regulated by the Central Bank and sufficient to cover the costs. That is not always followed by local authorities and that leaves people who are completely unsuspecting when they buy a new home, take on a lifetime of work to pay off the mortgage on the home and do everything to the best of their ability completely let down by the local authority and by the Government, which is not insisting on these as conditions with regard to bonds. It is a very disappointing response for the thousands of people around the country who are affected by this that the Government will not accept this amendment, which would actually ensure that bonds are sufficient to cover this. If it were a situation whereby we did not have decades of this not working, I could say it is fair enough. This has been an ongoing problem, however, and it is continuing to cause problems. I have meetings all the time with residents and local authorities in which the local authorities say they cannot draw down the bonds because they are insufficient and that is not going to work anyway. It is a very disappointing response.