Ms Donna McDade:

We have put our kitchen and stairs into storage. We have designed the bedrooms slightly smaller so that we can reuse carpets. We lifted solid oak wooden floors, which are not designed to be lifted and put down again. My 79-year-old father and I routed every single piece of the wooden floor so we could reuse it. It is in storage. We have also kept our bathroom furniture and anything at all that we can potentially reuse. We are reusing materials when we should not have to. We have redesigned bedrooms so that we can refit wardrobes in them again. People should not have to do this. I am fortunate to come from a construction background and members of my family are able to do it for me. That is not going to be the case for the vast majority of homeowners. They are not going to have the support network that I have.

As it stands, because the enhanced scheme was only enacted late on Monday evening, we still do not even know what our overall budget is going to be. It is very difficult to forecast that. We initially borrowed only €30,000 from the credit union. Our house was demolished in mid-February and we did not get our first payment until the end of May, three and a half months later. You cannot not pay people for three and a half months and expect them to do this on the basis of goodwill. That is just not plausible. We borrowed €30,000 to get the rebuild started and within a matter of weeks, we had to get it topped up by another €20,000. We have borrowed €50,000. Finances were exhausted at that stage. I do not know if any of the members have built a home but I did not realise money would go so quickly. I borrowed another €12,000 from my parents and an additional €4,000 last week. Otherwise, we would have had to stop the contract. Stopping the contract and having workers down tools would cost, on average, €350 per day, including what we are paying in rent, storage, the loan and the interest accrued on that. It is in my interest to beg, borrow and steal from my family members. Otherwise, we will have to down tools and work will stop. We will not get contractors to come back on site if they have two days' work now and a few days' work in a couple of weeks' time. It is just not feasible. As I said, six months into our build, we have put €66,000 into the project.