Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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It is a fair point but I think we are spreading a little bit of fear in this regard. I think qualified engineers, no matter who is paying them, are going to do their job right on this. I think we have to be fair to them. I need to read the new guidelines to be absolutely sure, but it would be unfair to spread fear. I take the point regarding the guidance on funding. We have to acknowledge that there are complications and difficulties in the schemes that are maddening to people. We have to work through those. There is now substantial funding set aside to see this out and more available if needs be. The issue referring to funding just means that the country has the money on a day-to-day basis now, unlike what might have happened back in 2010 or 2011. The money is available for the scheme and if more money is needed, the Housing Agency will recommend a certain amount of money to be set aside. As happened with the pyrite issue, the Housing Agency had to recommend money to be set aside and that was always matched. That reference is to do with the general state of public finances, as opposed to there being sufficient money for the scheme.

I am not as close to this issue as I was a number of years ago. At that time, people were forced to take sub-standard solutions because the State did not have the money. That is not the case now. I think the Government has stepped up on that one. Of course we can argue about the different parts of the scheme, but not the pot of money available.