Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Rafferty is talking about speedy implementation and all the rest. Why does he think the BPFI brought the proposal to the Department in July? Does he think it dreamed it up one day sitting across the road? Is it not the case homeowners were telling them they had problems with upfront costs? They were also telling the Department. In July of last year, the BPFI had developed a proposal and brought it to the Department. Before that, it knew there was an issue. The witnesses told us they became aware of the issue with professional fees in January and they talked about speedy implementation. We are in the month of May. The reason the BPFI was trying to do a convoluted system was the Department was not willing to move. We are ten months on and still do not have clarity as to when this earlier payment, which will not cost the State a penny, will be enacted and what it will look like. Will there be limits to it? I will talk about that later. When I go out of here and talk to people on the ground, they say this is crazy stuff. These people are in a living nightmare and going through all this anxiety. They see this as officials and Ministers not giving a damn about them. The fact it has taken so long to get to this point on a tiny part of the scheme that is only an administrative issue is a problem. Mr. Rafferty is telling me there is a solution the Department can do, it is administrative and can be done very quickly. Why was it not done last July?