Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)

This is shocking stuff. Let us be honest about it: this is unbelievable. That is the only way to describe it. There are at least 100,000 people, according to the witnesses' figures, who are at risk right now; more than 50,000 homes and there seems to be no urgency from the Government or the Minister to put a solution in place. The witnesses are coming forward with solutions and all they are looking for are funding and grants to help deliver the safety measures, as they have outlined. They are not looking for, in some cases, a whole refit for safety, they just want to increase the level of safety to reduce the risk in the short term. To me, this is not doing the job the way it should be done but at least they are trying to protect people. It is unbelievable.

The Minister needs to come in here and stand over why he and the Department are not taking action. I take the points made by the witnesses. If there is a tragedy, fingers will be pointed left, right and centre. We need accountability now. We know there is a problem and it needs to be fixed now. A plan must be put in place to deal with the fire and safety defects. They will not be fixed overnight but a plan must be put in place that is supported with funding and other supports to remediate the risk. The evidence the witnesses have given today is very serious. It is very important that they are here today to outline the risks for so many people.

This question is for Clúid. How does the maintenance of an apartment block compare to the maintenance of housing units? Is it more costly? How does maintenance work for cost rental? I am my party's spokesman on local government. We see insufficient maintenance being done on social housing. My worry is that we will have a big problem down the line with AHBs and cost rental if the funding plan is not laid out now for the future.