Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The apartment and duplex defects remediation Bill is proposed to provide for the payment of grants for the remediation of fire safety, structural safety and water egress defects in purpose-built apartment buildings including duplexes constructed between 1991 and 2013, and related matters. I am pleased we have an opportunity to carry out scrutiny of the general scheme with representatives of the Society of Chartered Surveyors of Ireland and Engineers Ireland. From the SCSI I welcome Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth and Ms Aisling Keenan. From Engineers Ireland I welcome Mr. Damien Owens, Mr. Michael Lyons and Mr. Cian O'Dowd.

Before we start, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege, and the practices of the Houses with regard to references witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege.

Witnesses are again reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

The opening statements have been circulated to members. We plan to publish the opening statements. Is that agreed? Agreed. We might give an opportunity for the witnesses to give a shortened version of those detailed statements, of about a minute or a minute and a half. I want to give the opportunity for more interaction with the members. I invite Mr. Hollingsworth to make his opening remarks.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

I am grateful for the invitation to address the committee today on behalf of the Society of Chartered Surveyors of Ireland. I am a chartered building surveyor and the company I work for is a competent professional in three of four of the interim remediation scheme pathfinder projects. I am joined here my colleague Aisling Keenan, who is a property manager with expertise in owners' management companies, OMCs.

We believe that the defects remediation Bill is critical to assist homeowners who have been negatively affected. It is key that it is statutory and fully funded, with a central role for the Housing Agency, providing a clear certification pathway and streamlined approach for people to apply. Our operational risks and recommendations are to strengthen OMC governance reform alongside multi-unit development, MUD reform. It is really needed to make the OMC system work. There are conflicting issues between public procurement and private organisations that need assistance. The other things are operational barriers impacting the grant schemes, including the need for a tenant liaison officer, a person who co-ordinates access, which is not currently funded under the interim remediation scheme. Any remediation project that I have ever done in occupied houses needed that essential role. The transfer of common areas is a key issue. Currently it is a barrier to entry onto the scheme. An estimated 25% of multi-unit developments do not have transfer of the common areas. I hope that is concise and of assistance.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Perfect, thank you. I invite Mr. Owens to make his statement on behalf of Engineers Ireland.

Mr. Damien Owens:

I am director general of Engineers Ireland and I am joined by Mr. Michael Lyons, a chartered engineer, and my colleague, Mr. Cian O'Dowd. Our organisation carries statutory responsibility for awarding of the title of chartered engineer professionals who are permitted to exercise certain reserve functions in law, such as performing the roles of assigned certifier and design certifier under the Building Control Act. We have presented some comments on the various heads of the Bill, in particular on head 13. It is imperative that selection of the most economically advantageous tender should include significant weighting for quality, more significantly than price. Affordability should not be the first consideration for the Exchequer, which should instead seek value. The Bill and the resulting scheme must emphasise a solution-based approach with due regard to performance in the event of a fire, addressing a structural defect, or water ingress. Implementation therefore must consider favourably technical solutions that resolve these defects. To this end, there should be an accompanying "deemed to satisfy" constructional solutions booklet or guide published, which would resolve absences or omissions in the original construction from 1991 to 2013, which should provide for a reasonable standard of resolution.

Schemes should also deliver transparency on the collaborative sharing of technical solutions. There appears to be no provision for an appeal to be lodged against the decision by the Housing Agency to refuse an application for revised grant approval pursuant to head 23, in instances where there has been since the date of approval an unforeseen material deterioration in the condition of the relevant building. The presence of substantial defects in homes create an enormous challenge for homeowners and residents. Engineers Ireland welcomes the proposed Bill, which provides an opportunity to remediate these problems. I am grateful for the opportunity to appear before the committee and we are happy to answer any questions members may have.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We will now go to members. I ask witnesses to be considerate of the time restrictions members have and to be forthright in their answers.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank both representative groups that are here today. Starting with the chartered surveyors, looking at your opening statement, there is a lot of agreement on the need for a broader approach, not just looking at this in isolation, but also reform of the MUD piece and the OMCs as well. That is critically important. One issue that did arise in our previous discussion on this was the need for a project manager position to be in place. Is that something the SCSI would be agreement with, as an approach on this just to make it work effectively? Those on OMCs do not have the technical expertise and it is unfair for them to have to manage this process. The idea that a project manager would be funded is something that should be done. Would the chartered surveyors agree with that recommendation?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

We think that would be very helpful. OMCs need expertise. On the three pathfinder projects that we have in our company, under individual competent professionals, I am fulfilling that role of the project manager in dealing directly with the OMCs and the directors and translating the technical information to them.

It is something that is essential.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. In a broad brush way, does Mr. Hollingsworth agree with the projected scale of this issue in terms of the number of properties impacted? Does he broadly agree with the potential cost of this, as estimated by the Department, or would he differ on that?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

I was chair of the specific consultation group within the defects in apartments working group. How we arrived at the scope of the issue was by reviewing census information between the period of 1991 to 2013. We arrived at 125,000 properties. From memory, our survey covered a sample of 28,000 of the 125,000 properties, which gave an 80% rate of reported defects. That is where the 100,000 figure came from. The sample of 28,000 of 125,000 is a significant sample, so we can have relative confidence in that. The figures that were included in it were based on varying figures from 2013 to 2022. They were all increased to 2022 figures when that report was issued. Currently, they are three years out of date. I believe that the Department of housing is currently reviewing them. The figures were arrived at with a high degree of analysis. From memory, they were made up of about 20 or 30 properties that had been remediated by engineers, architects and surveyors. The problem was we did not know the scope of that - whether they were full remediation or partial remediation - so there is a degree of inaccuracy there.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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There is a large degree of estimation in the figure.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

Yes. There was science behind arriving at the figures. I believe there is upward push inflationary provision, so the analysis needs to be redone.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate that. I will turn to Engineers Ireland. I will go initially with those questions in relation to the scale of the issue and the potential costs. Do the witnesses have initial comments on those?

Mr. Damien Owens:

My colleague can speak to the scale because he will have more details as a practitioner. In response to Deputy McGrath's previous point on whether a project manager was necessary, it would certainly be advantageous because the people in the OMCs would not have this expertise. If we can have centralised project managers to look across a number of remediations, we may gain some economies of scale and, certainly, of knowledge. Mr. Lyons will answer the question on scale.

Mr. Michael Lyons:

I was also on the working group. I concur with everything Mr. Hollingsworth has said. I would just point out that construction costs are relatively dearer in 2025 than they were when we looked at it in 2022.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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In his opening statement, Mr. Owens made the point that the grant would cover what was required. He mentioned that it could make sense to go further in terms of the work. He also mentioned modern methods of construction. Would he elaborate on that a little bit?

Mr. Damien Owens:

The scheme wants to undertake the remediation to standards from the 1990s to 2013. In some cases, there may be better materials available and there may be better methods available, and if it is cost effective to do that, they should be incorporated.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. I will leave it at that, Chair.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for the opening statements. They were very helpful. As Mr. Hollingsworth stated, we have waited a long time for this and it is crucial that we get this right.

My first question is a general one, and then I want to unpick some of the individual heads. The outline of the scheme is a grant scheme, not unlike the defective concrete blocks scheme, but there is now talk about, for example, project managers and dynamic purchasing systems for competent professionals. There might even be some kind of framework or remit with the Housing Agency for contractors and subcontractors. That is in the background to this. That is kind of moving towards the Pyrite Resolution Board system where it is just an end-to-end scheme.

Given the challenges with the OMCs, and even if we got an accelerated multi-unit development reform - that is highly unlikely - would it not just be better to say that now that the Pyrite Resolution Board is coming to the end of its natural life, all of the issues of project managers, framework agreements and so on could be put into the Pyrite Resolution Board by expanding its remit and we could run an end-to-end scheme rather than a grant aid scheme? Would that not solve a lot of those problems, in particular for OMCs? The witnesses have a lot more experience of this than I do. Even with MUD Act reform, OMCs are really going to struggle in terms of managing multimillion euro projects.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

It is a potential option but I do not know if it is the solution. I have never worked in government or had to deal with the challenges that the Housing Agency or the Department have.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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My question is just from a project management point of view, because that is the thing Mr. Hollingsworth is expert on. As a committee, we recently visited a scheme that was at the upper end of cost. The current estimated cost of the overall remediation is €40 million. For an OMC, that would be difficult to handle unless it had, just by virtue of luck, people on the board of directors who were surveyors, project managers and experts in contract law and who had a lot of spare time to manage something of that size and cost. Let us forget about the Government and the Housing Agency. From Mr. Hollingsworth's side of things, would it not be easier if it was in an end-to-end scheme run by a set of professionals, including people like the witnesses?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

I genuinely believe that the OMCs need significant amounts of help. I am sure Ms Keenan can attest to that from her experience. I would welcome anything that could help. If an end-to-end scheme is the way forward, so be it, but I do not have the expertise to say "Yes" or "No". We are two years into the interim remediation scheme and no works have physically started yet. It does not correlate with the nature of an emergency. What are the barriers that have caused that blockage? That is what needs to be analysed.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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As somebody who has been involved in three of those, could Mr. Hollingsworth run us through in summary some of the key barriers that have slowed that down?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

We were instructed to procure in a certain manner and then, at a later stage when grants were purported to be ready to issue, we were asked to redesign and reprocure for the Government form of contract and through Government procurement. We all know that there are challenges with Government procurement. Our colleagues in the SCSI were in last week giving evidence on the national development plan objectives for delivering infrastructure and the problems with procurement. We know that there is also a cautious culture in public contracting. We know from the media that there have been scandals about that, so that overcautiousness can create delays.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I have one final question. I have lots of questions so, time permitting, I will come back to both of the witnesses.

In terms of non-defective fire safety issues, there are OMCs that did not have the wherewithal financially to keep upgrading their fire safety systems, which created challenges with some of the pathfinders. There does not seem to be any willingness in the context of the general scheme to address that other than a requirement that the OMC will have to demonstrate a kind of plan of works to bring a fire alarm system or emergency lighting up to date. How much of a challenge do the witnesses think that is going to be for those OMCs that have challenges in terms of their sinking funds or their inability to manage? Do they think there is an argument to say the Government should just go in and do all of the works but make the portion that is not defect-related an interest-free loan placed as a charge on the OMC to be paid down over time to get the work done? If something like that is not there, are we at risk of work not happening because the OMC does not have the financial ability at that point in time to fund it?

Ms Aisling Keenan:

When they talk about the requirements that the apartment block will have in terms of remediating defects and taking into consideration the actual state of the apartment block all these years later, there are provisions within the proposed Bill for an apartment block not to have abdicated its responsibility for maintaining the building all along.

We can have a fair idea that there are many OMCs of apartment blocks that have not maintained them in the way they should have. This Bill states the general maintenance of a building all the way along needs to have been to a particular standard. If it has not been, it does not mean the defects scheme will not apply. It may apply, but for anything else that is found that should have been part of a maintenance programme-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That I understand. My question is a different one, related to getting the fire brigade to sign off on the fire certificate at the end and also to where it has concerns about the failure to have adequately maintained the existing fire safety systems. This has nothing to do with defects, just the OMC’s management. If there is not a financial fix, particularly where OMCs do not have the money – I am not suggesting the State pay for this – surely that is going to cause difficulties in remediating certain blocks. Does the committee need to make the case to the Government that there needs to be a fix for this? It has been indicated that there might be a fix for the common areas.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

I agree that OMCs should have the ability to access funds to deal with issues. I can confirm that in all three pathfinder projects we were involved in, the fire alarms were maintained and serviced throughout their lives. That does not mean that they were not defective, however. With regard to maintaining a fire alarm or emergency lighting system, one can have maintenance compliance certificates, including IS numbers, but that does not mean it was installed correctly. We were able to reverse engineer and confirm that the systems in question were maintained but defective. A critical point on which we had discussions with the Housing Agency was that the systems were at the end of their lives. My position on that is that just because a prescribed, expected lifespan has ended does not mean the end of life. A flat roof has an expected life of 15 years and a fire alarm or smoke detector has an expected life of 15 years, but they can have much more life if well maintained. The pertinent issue is one of whether a system was defective at installation. We know the life of a timber window is 30 years but there are windows throughout Georgian Dublin that are 200 years old.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I call Senator Casey.

Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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I am okay on this round.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I call Deputy Ó Broin again for the next slot.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I am happy for Deputy Sheehan to contribute now since he is here. I can do so after him. We have a good bit of time.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I call Deputy Sheehan.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I thank the Chair. I have a number of brief questions. Could Ms Keenan give a clear outline as to the exact supports OMCs will need navigating this?

Ms Aisling Keenan:

Mr. Hollingsworth has just mentioned that the one main support an OMC will need as part of the scheme is a tenant liaison officer. That is back to project management, which we mentioned earlier. It is going to be the most important support because we know from experience of the issues that arise when we are working within a multi-unit development with multiple property owners and multiple tenants. You are trying to gain access to a building that is lived in. If it is down to the contractor actually doing the work to try to get the apartment door open and liaise with those concerned, it will just not happen. We have experience of projects in multi-unit developments failing because they did not have tenant liaison officers. That is one of the main things the OMCs want when working under the scheme to the success of each project.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I want to ask about navigating public procurement in particular. We know that national law and EU law have to be complied with and that procurement is quite complex. How will we ensure OMCs can navigate? As far as I understand it, the process takes 13 to 14 months, which is far too slow. Is there a way to do this within, say, six months?

Ms Aisling Keenan:

That is a really important question because it alludes to the one thing we can see really clearly that comes between the two types of procurement. With public procurement, there are particular routes that need to be followed, including in respect of getting the best value for money. In the private sector, while the OMC would be following certain procurement rules, those rules would probably not be nearly like those of the public sector. What we have to try to do, particularly with this scheme and on the public side, is ensure that how an OMC procures and gets business done is successful for both sides. How will that happen? It is going to involve the consideration of the rules on both sides and having a meeting place somewhere in that regard.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I also want to ask about the right of appeal. Does the fact that there is no formal appeals mechanism effectively mean that if you are refused, that is it? Where do you go afterwards regarding a right of appeal?

Ms Aisling Keenan:

Does the Deputy mean an appeal in terms of applying for the remediation?

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Yes.

Ms Aisling Keenan:

I am not so sure of the answer to that question.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

I thought there was a right of appeal but no right of appeal regarding the appeal-----

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I am sorry but that is what I meant.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

That is the issue. It is in the context of further works. This ties into the Deputy’s previous question, on the rigidity of public procurement and the fixed price. My personal view is that the public procurement contracts that require fixed-fee amounts move the balance of risk over to the contractor, whereas private procurement under what is commonly the RIAI contract is a much more flexible animal. In two of the pathfinder projects, on which I have some figures, we did two separate tender exercises – one private and one public. One resulted in a private tender figure of €2.16 million and a public tender figure of €2.199 million. The figures were very similar because the building was fairly simplistic and there was minimal risk associated with the tender. The figure for the next building was just shy of €2.4 million under the private tender. The public tender figure was €3.3 million.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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How does Mr. Hollingsworth account for that difference?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

There was an additional €500,000 for preliminary costs, which are the costs of doing the job. I am referring to a very complex and risky project, involving occupation, the replacement of the roof and new external walkways. The public form of contract moves all of the risk to the contractor, and the contractor prices it in. With regard to the original €2.4 million, there will be issues with existing buildings, even with the best will in the world. When you open the can, the worms spill out. That is the nature of construction, particularly in existing buildings. From my experience of such works, the €2.4 million would end up being €2.6 million or €2.8 million. The fixed nature of the contract will make the contractor over-price the risk because he is required to do the job fully for the given figure. That is a key difference between the two types of tendering.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Perfect.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Let me follow on from that line of questioning. Again, is what was said not an argument that, irrespective of whether the scheme is a grant scheme or an end-to-end scheme, we need to move towards framework agreements whereby each OMC is not left having to go out to tender for each individual job? The OMC could operate under a framework or series of frameworks. In the first instance, this would allow a group of contractors to become specialist over time in what are going to be increasingly complex jobs. Second, it changes the risk relationship between the contractor and contracting party because they want to remain in the framework and have the certainty of the work over time.

From the witnesses’ experience, do they think that having framework agreements would be a more efficient way of pricing the work, developing the expertise of the contractors and having a different kind of relationship? We often hear architects in the local government sector talk about how every building site is a battlefield with the contractor because the contractor is trying to get what they can out of the job and the local authority is trying to bring down the price. I am talking about multi-annual frameworks. Perhaps Mr. Owens could speak from his point of view, and then Mr. Hollingsworth or Ms Keenan could give a view.

Related to that, there is only a very vague reference to caps and costing mechanisms in the general scheme. If we think about the challenges with the cap and the SCSI costing reports on defective blocks, these are far more complex. Do the witnesses have thoughts on how caps and costings may or may not work and may avoid some of the challenges we have had with defective concrete blocks?

Mr. Damien Owens:

On the end-to-end point, the OMCs will need help in getting through the scheme and getting their projects implemented. They will not have the necessary expertise, so they will need project management. The Deputy referred to an end-to-end scheme, for example, the pyrite scheme, where there was a framework with contractors. The main difference is that, with pyrite, you are dealing with a single problem whereas with this there are ingress issues, structural defects and fire issues, so we are looking at a combination of competences, which will exist either individually or combined. That expertise would have to be put in place if there was a framework scheme. There certainly would be benefits to getting institutional learning as we move through the schemes.

On the caps and costs, I would not be qualified to talk about that. Perhaps some of my colleagues can answer.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

In relation to the comparisons to pyrite and mica, pyrite was a singular issue, as Mr. Owens said. It was also a much more limited scheme. Only pyrite damage rating 2 got in, whereas damage ratings 0 and 1, which had pyrite, were excluded. It had a much narrower focus. We need to widen the net so that we get more contractors into this. My fear is that there are not enough contractors to do this type of work. It is messy and unpleasant work, so given the lack of contractors out there-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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To pick up on that point and to follow on from Mr. Owens's point, if individual contractors are going to be tendering for individual jobs, there is a large volume of risk. However, if they are in a multi-annual framework, they know they are guaranteed a body of work and they can build up that capacity. For example, they can bring in-house the firestopping experts or water ingress experts. Surely that is a way to build that capacity over time. In some senses, Leinster pyrite was a single issue and defective concrete block is a single issue; effectively, it is sulphate attack. It is more about the approach that allows us to deal with some of the complexities. If I look at what is happening in Donegal and Mayo, my worry is that the costs for individual building suppliers have gone through the roof, which is creating real challenges. That then means, of course, that people do not necessarily have access to the funding gap themselves. Have the witnesses dealt with multi-annual framework agreements of the kind I am talking about? Would they lend themselves to dealing with some of the challenges they have outlined?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

I have not dealt with them myself professionally but in this scheme, they are applying that principle to the competent professionals. Ergo, should it not apply to the contractors? Again, this applies as long as the end is to increase the pool of contractors. I believe that is going to be the limitation in the scheme.

In relation to cost caps, there can be no cost caps because each building is unique. Within our company, we have had remediation costs from €15,000 per unit to €40,000 per unit. It comes down to the complexity of the original design and the systems. There are pressurisation systems, building management systems and alarm systems, and they all have an effect. It is common that you would ventilate to the outside face, but we have remediated buildings with glass façades that have internal ventilation and damper and duct systems, which were extremely complicated and costly to remediate. Every building is unique, so a cost cap just will not work.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I have some quick questions. The ancillary grants are €5,000 for storage and up to €15,000 for accommodation. The recommendation in the Bill is that this be done through the OMC rather than having individuals applying. Perhaps I am guessing the answer, but would it be the witnesses’ view that this makes sense, but only if the tenant liaison person is involved, because who else is going to be able to do all of that? Given the very strained relationships in a lot of OMCs - with people not paying fees, tenants who may have complicated relationships with their landlords, and schemes where the original developer was responsible for the defects and continues to own units - how much of a challenge is that going to be?

Ms Aisling Keenan:

The operations of the OMC mean it is a challenging environment simply because it operates on a collective responsibility arrangement. There is a group of individuals and while they all have the one goal at the end of the day, they can certainly be competing with one another on other levels. When it comes to the funding that will come into the OMC to address different things, such as accommodation and so on, it is a little like what Mr. Hollingsworth has just said. Every OMC is unique and different in its own way, the same as every apartment block is. An OMC is all about the directors and members of the management company. How big is the apartment block? How many members are there? How many of the members have expertise in certain areas, such as a legal background, an engineering background or an accountancy background? For example, there can be an owners' management company where there are four active directors, and of the four, two are qualified accountants and give a lot of their time freely to work on the accounts of the OMC. That type of OMC contrasts with another OMC that has no expertise on the board.

When the funding comes into the OMC, we need to have a really good understanding of how it will work for that OMC. I understand that is the Deputy’s question to me. What I am saying is that these are the considerations. Mr. Hollingsworth has alluded to this issue. Unlike the pyrite scheme or the other schemes, this is unique because we are dealing with a collective and no two OMCs or multi-unit developments are the same. What we know is that we are trying to get a scheme for each development that will work.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Head 17 talks about reimbursing funds, and the language is interesting. It states that the relevant owner, which is obviously the OMC in this case, will be required to use grant funds to reimburse the sinking fund. One of the issues that arises is that there may be an OMC that has already started some level of remediation. For example, it might have got the competent professional, done the report and raised the first of four €10,000 levies, and then it applied for the scheme. It does not seem that there is a provision in the general scheme for the reimbursement to the unit owners, as they are called. It just goes into the sinking fund. I presume the view would be that if people have paid a portion of the remediation, the grant should cover that element as well as whatever else. I do not know if the witnesses have a view on that particular head.

I also have a couple of other technical questions.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

I had read that where a relevant owner - the OMC - had utilised sinking funds previously accumulated during its normal operations to pay for the relevant defects, the relevant owner would be required to use the grant to reimburse that. Therefore, if that first €10,000 was taken from the sinking fund, then it would have to go back there and not be separated back to the owners.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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My question is a separate one, but that is exactly how I read that sentence. It is the absence of anything that refers to a levy. Typically speaking, as the witnesses know, people pay their management fees and those fees are for day-to-day maintenance and the sinking fund. However, where defects arise and following an AGM and a report, there is a specific levy that is raised to start to pay for the remediation. There is no reference to that scenario here. In addition to the sentence, which is very clear, I presume there should be some mechanism whereby if there has been, not the regular management fee contributions to the sinking fund, but a stand-alone levy to contribute to the initial stages of the remediation, they should be reimbursed.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

I think it is key. Most management companies will have undertaken a levy to have that money. I think the legislation should identify that the money that is paid to the relevant owner, which is the OMC, should be reimbursed to the members at the time of that levy, so it goes back to the people who actually paid, in the same way that it says it should be reimbursed to the sinking fund. They are the same rights.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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When the working group was established, the wording of the terms of reference was that the group would "examine defects in housing". When the online survey came out, we noticed that people could only fill it out if they were apartment or duplex owners. There are some multi-unit developments with small numbers of houses that may have lower levels of defects. They might have communal roof spaces, for example. We checked with the Department and found there is absolutely no provision for consideration of that. From Mr. Hollingsworth's experience, does there need to be at least some flexibility whereby if a multi-unit development includes some housing units that have defects - I know of some from my research - they should be included in the scheme because their owners will also potentially have been levied to pay a portion of the costs, as homeowners, albeit at a lower level?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

At Millfield Manor in Newbridge, County Kildare, a row of houses that should have lasted six to eight hours burned down in an hour because of the absence of correctly detailed party walls. Houses are affected, but from the first meeting of the defects in apartments working group, houses were excluded. That decision was taken at the outset.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I get that. That was a political decision and a separate process. If somebody is going to operate a scheme and it transpires that a certain number of the units are houses, would it be helpful to have some flexibility to ensure they are not excluded if some remediation is required in the context of a multi-unit development, MUD? It would still be focused on the MUD, but with potentially a small number of houses or, in the case of Millfield Manor, a significant number, as well as the apartments.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

First, from a moral and ethical point of view, those owners are equally as affected as the apartment owners. Second, there is a complication in that the OMC does not own the houses. The OMC in the apartment complex owns the building - the walls, floors-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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However, let me say-----

Mr. Michael Lyons:

For individual houses, there is no OMC.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That is the challenge. We have OMCs right across the country where developments include apartments, duplexes and houses. They are all tied into the OMC and all subject to management fees. In fact, we have new developments where stand-alone houses have separate, non-private communal roofs and communal back gardens, and those house owners contribute. I could take the witnesses to such developments in my area, both new and from the Celtic tiger era. There is an anomaly in this regard. Eventually, what happens is that those owners pay a far lower fee. Hunters Wood is one development that has frequently been in the news, and there are also the Paddocks and Newcastle Lyons. New developments include Seven Mills and Kilcarbery Grange. In those cases, houses are tied in on the cost side and they have defects. I presume it would make no sense to exclude them if people are already on site trying to remediate a scheme where there are defects.

Mr. Michael Lyons:

I was on the working group. At the very beginning, one of the first clarifications - I will not say it was an argument - was that its terms of reference would apply solely to apartments or, in building control terms, flats, and duplexes, which are also flats. One of the other complications of including houses is that a single family home occupied as a single dwelling is not included under the Fire Services Acts. The chief officer who is at the end of a proposed scheme cannot sign off on anything to do with an individual house because he or she does not have the legal standing to be involved in fire safety in respect of individual houses.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I have three further questions. Regarding non-transferred areas, the officials from the Department indicated they potentially have a fix for that. Obviously, those areas need to be included. Do the witnesses have a suggestion as to how best they can be included, or does the Department need to consult the Attorney General and find a legal solution?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

Is the Deputy referring to the inclusion of houses?

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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No, this is a separate question.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

Is it about common areas?

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I refer to non-transferred areas, particularly where a developer has gone bust or been liquidated and there is a kind of legal question mark over them. The departmental officials indicated they think they have a fix, and I am inviting the witnesses to pre-empt that. Do they have an idea for a fix?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

No. Two of our pathfinders are held up with the common area issue. That is very frustrating for the two OMCs, both of which have made multiple representations to their local TDs, Ministers and so on for assistance. If the Department has found a potential fix, that would be welcome news.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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My second last question is on transitional mechanisms. The general scheme provides for a mechanism for people who were in the interim fire safety scheme - not the four pathfinders but the other 213 or so that have yet to progress. From my reading of it, the Department's intention seems to be that rather than any more of those schemes progressing along the pathfinder route, they will just be rolled into the scheme. Do the witnesses have a view on that? There does not seem to be any reference in the general scheme to the pilot pathfinders around retrospection for people who have already paid. Should there also be a transitional mechanism to deal with that?

Third, the terms of reference stop at 2013 because of the introduction of the building control amendment regulations, BCAR, in 2014. Are the witnesses convinced there will not be a need, from an equity point to view, to see the scheme open beyond 2013 for pre-BCAR regulated developments? Obviously, we cannot discuss some of the legal actions currently under way by two local authorities but we all know what they are. Is this an issue we should still be concerned about, albeit at a lower level than at the height of the Celtic tiger?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

I will answer the Deputy's last question first. We have inspected a number of properties subject to BCAR and, generally, they are to a good standard.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Absolutely.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

I have not seen anywhere near the same level of non-compliance as previously.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That is my sense of it but there clearly is some non-compliance.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

The issue, which was created by self-regulation, with the certificate of compliance given on a visual inspection does not seem to be as systemic. That has been tightened up and there is recourse through the 2014 regulations to the assigned certifier if there are found to be any defects.

On transitional agreements, they should be in place for pathfinders for all projects to be able to get retrospection and to pass freely. I have not yet heard from anyone in the Department or the Housing Agency what the concrete plans are in this regard. The Deputy obviously knows more about it than I do.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I am not too sure about that. Does Mr. Owens have any observations on any of my questions?

Mr. Damien Owens:

Since the introduction of BCAR in 2014, there are now audit trails. The quality in terms of certification and assurance that things are being built to specification and standard is much greater. I would argue that the local authorities and fire services need more resources to provide another layer of compliance. It is more cost-effective to put those resources in at the start than to have to come back later.

The Deputy asked about money going back to the sinking fund and to unit owners. In many cases, people will have had to take out loans to pay the levy and are paying interest on those. It is important that they would get payment back through the scheme.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Is Mr. Owens referring to the OMC or the owner?

Mr. Damien Owens:

The owner. Also, during the scheme, the suppliers of services, whether professionals or building contractors, should be paid in a timely manner. If there are any delays in money to or from the OMC down the chain, that will create further barriers to people participating in the scheme.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Is that an argument for direct-stage payments from the Housing Agency to approved contractors or certified professionals during the course of the work, rather than via the OMC in arrears, as happens with the defective concrete blocks scheme?

Mr. Damien Owens:

It could be.

It really depends on the contractual arrangements between all of the parties and the way the scheme is established.

Mr. Michael Lyons:

It raises the very important issue of the nature of construction. Remediation construction is complicated and takes time. The whole idea of contractors not getting paid means that they walk off the site. In my professional experience, where that has happened it destroys the scheme. The whole thrust of achieving the end result of a fully remediated building gets thrown out the window and it is very difficult to get it back on track. The Deputy has raised a really important issue around the funding side of things and whether it is a certified form of funding that could go directly through whoever is handling the money.

In relation to changes post-2013-----

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry to interrupt but I want to let Senator McCarthy in now.

Mr. Michael Lyons:

My apologies.

Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for being here. We have been discussing this issue for a number of weeks and I brought up the example of Millfield Manor two weeks ago. I went to school in Newbridge so I know exactly what happened there. It is only through the hand of God that no lives were lost. For six houses to be burned down in an hour is just unacceptable but it is also unacceptable that the taxpayer gets the bill for hundreds of millions of euro without first establishing how this all went wrong. It looks like the Bill, although it funds remediation, does nothing to strengthen enforcement, inspections or building control. What are the witnesses' views on that? Is this going far enough to hold developers, certifiers or people who have walked away from the likes of Millfield Manor to account?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

I thank the Senator for his question. I am a taxpayer too. My desire is that this would not have happened in the first place but it has happened, so it needs to be remediated. Where people can be held accountable, they should be. I note that there are provisions in this Bill for the Department to take ownership of any legal actions that are in progress. The Department can subrogate and take over those cases.

Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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Does Mr Hollingsworth think that goes far enough?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

There was a representative of the Attorney General on the working group and the Government's intent with that group was to figure out how to chase the money. That was a key tenet of the terms of reference. The analysis was that, due to the passage of the six-year statute of limitations, or even 12 years if the contract was signed under deed, that time period had lapsed and there was no probability of success. The programme for Government back then contained a reference to exploring a grant or low-cost loan system. It was also the Government's intent to chase the developers but both of those things were discounted by the working group as being impractical. That working group included the Office of the Attorney General right across to the Housing Finance Agency. It explored all of the avenues.

Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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The problem is that in the case of a number of developments that have come before this committee the developers were not held accountable and yet those same developers are now building elsewhere. There is no accountability. The taxpayer cannot keep funding the homes damaged by pyrite or mica, and the likes of Millfield Manor in Newbridge. The taxpayer cannot keep doing that. The regulatory and certification system failed homeowners. Can this Bill succeed without understanding why that system failed in the first place?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

This Bill is not the mechanism to do that. I agree wholeheartedly with the Senator. Rules and regulations are all well and good but the threat of enforcement has to be real and credible for people to comply with them. What is needed to satisfy the Senator's desire and my desire is a further increase in the enforcement of the regulations. That means more fire officers and more building control officers. Dublin City Council's building control department inspects every single building being constructed that will have people sleeping in it, but not all local authorities have the funds to do that. Local authorities get a minuscule amount of funding, amounting to €30 per commencement notice regardless of whether that notice is for an extension in a back garden or 200 apartments. They need funding. They are obliged to inspect 15% of developments. That is their benchmark but we need that to be 100%. The local authorities cannot do it without funding but this Bill is not necessarily the place to right that wrong. This is about repairing the damage done by a previous defective building control system which allowed buildings to be certified on a visual inspection only, after construction was completed.

Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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How come the certifiers, such as Mr. Hollingsworth, were not held liable in that regard?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

Certification was based on a visual inspection. I will explain the scenario. An architect, engineer, quantity surveyor or building surveyor designs the building. The developer submits the planning application and gets approval. The developer submits the fire certificate which says how the building will be built. The fire service replies that if the building is built as the developer says it will be built, it will be compliant. Then the builder goes off and builds it. The builder discharges the professional team totally and builds the building however he or she wants. The architect, engineer or surveyor is brought back in at the end, when everything is covered up. We can only see if the building looks likes it should vis-à-vis the planning. We cannot see the insulation, the foundations or the fire proofing.

Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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That cannot happen now.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

That can no longer happen. Let me be clear-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It can.

Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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If it can, then that is a big issue.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

What I have described is the root cause of this €2.5 billion problem. The root cause is that we created a system in 1990 that allowed buildings to be constructed and certified without ongoing inspections.

Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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I do not know whether Deputy Ó Broin just coughed there or whether he does not agree.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It is important to say that I agree with both Mr. Owens and Mr. Hollingsworth that the level of compliance with the building control amendment regulations, BCAR, is completely transformed. My argument is not that we are back in the Celtic tiger days. Dublin City Council and Mr. Pat Nestor are building a full team, at the request of the city manager, so that 100% of all multi-unit developments, whether they are nursing homes, apartments or commercial buildings, are inspected. The council does not have to do that. There is no legal requirement for it to do so. There is a protocol with the Department under which the council can inspect 15% of buildings, but the council is doing 100%. Then we come to my local authority, South Dublin County Council. It is a very good council but the building control section, exactly as Mr. Hollingsworth says, is chronically understaffed. While I cannot name the cases right now, I can take members to buildings that are post-2014 and fully built and fully occupied but for which not a single certificate of compliance was submitted.

The challenge here is around enforcement. There should be really severe enforcement in the case of such flagrant breaches of BCAR but that has yet to happen in the small number of very high profile cases. Dublin City Council, because it inspects everything, enforces like crazy, and so it should, but until the one, two or three developers - and our friend from Millford Manor is back at it again in my own constituency - who are breaking planning and building control laws are prosecuted, nothing will change. It is €10,000 or six months in prison for allowing a building to be occupied without a completion certificate. Until there are some very high profile prosecutions then, at the edges of the industry, the cowboys will continue to operate.

That is not in any way an alarmist call or a suggestion that we are back in the bad old days. The reality is that most local authorities do not prioritise building control or do not have the staff. Dublin City Council is an exception and is to be commended on that, in my view. Mr. Nestor and his team are feared by developers but it is not so everywhere else.

Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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I have one final question on that. From a professional point of view, does the State have a register of the people who have caused these problems, the cowboy builders referred to by Deputy Ó Broin? Do we know who designed, certified and built these problematic buildings? If we do not have that basic information, are we going to be revisiting this in a couple of years?

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We need to stick to what we are discussing, which is what we are going to do to sort it out and remediate the buildings. What the Senator is raising now is a topic for discussion on another day. He is going back to questions of who is to blame and so on.

We will move on to questions from me. I am conscious of time and we have more witnesses to come in.

At a recent meeting on apartment development, we met apartment owners, people involved in OMCs. A lucky one might have good professional people involved and working on behalf of apartment owners but as members have said that does not happen everywhere. It is not fair for the State to put responsibility on OMCs which do not have that professional expertise. That is where a tenant liaison officer or somebody needs to be appointed by the State to do that work. It is not fair to put it on them. I think there was one Department that seemed to have a fix for common areas but no one else seems to have an idea what that could be. I think they will come up with something because it is an issue. We wait to see what that is. I know the witnesses put out there the ones they think could be considered.

The paragraph from the SCSI statement that two years into the scheme no works have reached site stood out to me. IT demonstrates that a purely grant-driven approach without addressing operational barriers and complications with public procurement may not deliver timely resolution. What is there is not working in the way it should. Apart from extra funding towards the schemes, we have to make changes to make this scheme more streamlined and work better to remediate the apartments.

I ask the witnesses for their thoughts on common areas. What are the top one or two items they believe need to be included in the scheme to make sure it gets to conclusion?

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

The common areas is a complex legal issue and, to be totally honest, it is not my area of expertise. In one particular pathfinder project that we have, the developer is in liquidation and is gone. They will need to go to the High Court to regularise that. Surely a letter from the liquidator to say, "We have no objection to this" could resolve it. With another pathfinder, at the eleventh hour it was found that part of the common area was in a private individual's name, but the OMC solicitor had confirmed that the OMC had full beneficial interest and control. To me that was enough. These would seem to be relatively easy things to overcome. The Chairman has informed me that the Department asked to engage and that the Attorney General has potentially found a fix. With both of those pathfinders where the tenants have been long waiting and living in dangerous apartments, they would welcome that remediation.

Ms Aisling Keenan:

When we speak about the transfer of common areas for these apartment blocks, it is true to say that many OMCs across the country do not have the common areas transferred. This scheme has shone a light on that and the Chairman has asked how this can be overcome. There is a legal process to follow to regularise those matters in an OMC. We have done that many times with OMCs around the country. It just means they have to go through that process. One of the solutions there is to rely on the Trustee Act. That provides that the common areas in the apartment blocks are held on trust for the OMC. So, in the event where the property developer has gone out of business, the courts can rely on the Trustee Act in order to overcome the obstacle. There certainly is a process there and it is only a matter of following it. Mr. Hollingsworth has quite rightly said that some cases can be a bit different from others in legal terms and need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. As Mr. Owens has said, there may be an opportunity for it the Attorney General to step in and look at another solution as well which would be very welcome.

Mr. Kevin Hollingsworth:

The Chairman's second question related to the statement about operational barriers. The context is that these two years have been a pathfinder. It was there to educate the Housing Agency, the consultants and the fire officers about how to get through the process. There has been a significant amount of learning for everyone involved, including me. Some of the actions, particularly when we had a number of developments procured, designed and ready to go, that were sent back through public procurement, did not align with the emergency nature of the works to those developments. Some of them are particularly dangerous. I point out to Senator McCarthy that one of them is a timber framed development in his county and so they are significant. One of them in Dublin city centre has external fire escape routes that are not fire protected meaning that if there is a fire, people will not be able to escape from their properties. These are serious and significant issues. The interim measures scheme was set up to get emergency funding to those developments. That is the frustrating part for the people involved and the OMCs. There was still a learning process that everyone had to go through to try to develop this legislation.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We need to finish in the next 30 seconds.

Mr. Damien Owens:

On the common areas, having been a victim of that, I know that there is a way of doing it but it takes a long time and an OMC would not have the expertise. To make the scheme effective, we need to look at the financial flows to make sure that people are not left looking for money for storage, accommodation, contractors or whatever because that would delay things. To be fair, on the defective concrete block scheme, the Housing Agency and the local authorities are aware of that and have helped things move greatly.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank all the witnesses for coming in to help us with our consideration on this. I propose to suspend briefly to allow witnesses to take their seats for the next session.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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To continue our discussion, I welcome witnesses from the Construction Defects Alliance, Apartment Owners' Network and Not Our Fault: Mr. Pat Montague, Mr. David McLelland and Mr. Sam Doran respectively. From the Housing Alliance, we have Ms Sharon Cosgrove, Ms Fiona Dunkin and Mr. Ben Dunne. From the Irish Council for Social Housing, we have Ms Ailbhe McLoughlin and Ms Lyndsey Anderson.

Before we start, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege, and the practices of the Houses with regard to references witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege.

Witnesses are again reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

The opening statements have been circulated to members. I propose that those opening statements be made public and published on the committee's website. Is that agreed? Agreed.

We have quite considerable opening statements. I will give each group one minute to try to condense them. That will give members the opportunity to ask questions over and back. I ask Mr. Pat Montague to deliver his opening statement.

Mr. Pat Montague:

The Chair’s eyes would have glazed over thinking I would be reading out what I sent the committee. There was never any chance of that. I thank the Chair and members for the invitation this evening. In a nutshell, the general scheme is premised on a grant-based system. In other words, funding comes from the State to owners’ management companies to undertake the works with, basically, responsibility - we heard this last week from the Department - resting with the owners’ management company to execute the works. In a sense, under the Multi-Unit Developments Act, they are the ones that have legal responsibility for health and safety in those developments. That is the concept behind it. It is important to say that we are agnostic on the question of the method used. However, we have had two years of a grant-based system in operation and our remarks are very simply this: first, owners’ management companies are struggling and will struggle to deal with this system because they do not have the expertise and wherewithal to manage it. Second, coming back to procurement, the procurement requirements have been exceptionally onerous and, if this is the system going forward without some alleviation, the application process is incredibly slow and does not fit the need that is there in terms of life safety, as the committee will have seen last week.

The final point relates to common areas. While the Department has said it is finding a fix, we have not seen it yet. That is still an outstanding issue.

Ms Sharon Cosgrove:

We are here representing the Housing Alliance, which consists of the seven largest approved housing bodies. I will not go through their names because members have that information in front of them. Obviously, apartment defects have been a major issue and the boards of the AHBs have prioritised health and safety above everything else. Millions of euro have been invested across our members’ organisations. In terms of the draft Bill, the fact that retrospection is included and AHBs are considered eligible owners is very welcome. We welcome that. As I said, the retrospection is very important.

We have two priorities, the first of which relates to the timelines that are set out within the scheme. They are probably something we would like to have changed. There is a mention of three months in terms of procurement and starting the works. That is very tight. After a tender, a price comes in, which contractors usually hold for six months and a longer period can be negotiated until they can mobilise. We are talking about a small number of contractors who can do this sort of work, so some leeway or flexibility in this regard would be welcome in the redraft.

The other thing mentioned is the ten-year period for the scheme. With pyrite, we know that was extended, and it is probably too tight as well. Timelines are the other thing. This is reflected in everyone else's submission but emergency procurement for safety and fire safety works should be allowed, rather than having to go through a lengthy public procurement process for something that is a significant health and safety risk.

Ms Lyndsey Anderson:

Our full submission from the Irish Council for Social Housing is based on three core principles. The first is that the basis of all remediation works needs to be taken on a whole building approach. That means all units, including the commercial units. We also want the relevant dwellings to be reconsidered and the definition to include hostels and nursing homes. Many of our members have nursing home-type accommodation that is HIQA designated, so it is important that it is included in our sector. The focus of the remediation scheme and interim schemes must ensure the safety of all people occupying the affected properties. It should not be based on the tenure by which people occupy their home. Rather, it should be a safety response for all people in affected properties.

We talk a bit more about relevant standards and ensuring they are clear and consistent throughout the Bill.

I wish to direct members to page 2 of our submission where we discuss and outline some of the numbers of affected AHBs properties, both within AHB schemes that are wholly owned by the AHB and in schemes that are owned through the owners’ management company. That affects how the AHB engages with the programme and interim scheme. We want the committee to be aware of some of those properties. There are just over 4,500 affected. That is just a brief snapshot. That is 1,600 homes with tenants currently ineligible for remediation through the interim schemes.

We also wish to point out two other elements, one of which is beside this Bill and the other contained within it. With regard to the retrospection element and the previous Minister's commitment to make retrospective payments, the AHB sector is ineligible to access the current interim retrospection scheme. That is quite a significant issue for us. There has been a lot of expenditure already on those properties. AHBs will continue, of course, to remediate their properties but there should be some recourse in the meantime while this Bill is under way.

My last point relates to an element that is beside this Bill, that is, the defective concrete blocks element. It is covered under the structural defects piece in this Bill but there is no social scheme for defective concrete blocks yet.

I believe there is a pilot in Donegal with the local authority, but there is no AHB or social scheme. We have been waiting for years for that and it is really significant. With every winter that passes, that issue becomes much more difficult to resolve and our remediation options become much more complex.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Anderson. Senator Casey is next.

Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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I thank everyone for their presentations. I listened to them from upstairs. I thank the witnesses for all the work they do on this issue and the exposure they are personally putting themselves through. I acknowledge and recognise that.

The issue of common areas has arisen in both sessions as a huge and significant stumbling block. Are there many units where that ownership cannot be defined? Do we have a number for that?

Mr. Pat Montague:

Yes. When this issue arose with two of the four pathfinders in the interim remediation scheme, the Housing Agency did a survey of the other 200-odd applicants. What emerged from that was that 25% of those 200-odd applicants had issues. They do not have full legal ownership of the common areas. Based on our experience, that would be an underestimate of the actual size of the challenge among all OMCs because the ones that have applied to the scheme are, frankly, the better organised and more effective OMCs. There are a lot of less organised OMCs out there that have not come near any of the schemes. Our sense is that it is a much bigger issue than 25% of the overall cohort.

The Department indicated last week that it was engaging with the Attorney General to try to resolve this. We have not seen that yet but what we do know is that two of the four pathfinder applicants for the interim remediation scheme are absolutely stuck. Their applications are precluded from moving forward because of issues with common areas. We do not have a resolution to this. It will have a massive impact.

Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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Does anyone else want to comment?

Mr. Sam Doran:

Luckily enough, our common area was signed over, but as Mr. Hollingsworth said, two of his were not. It is a big problem. Is there a way for the Government to put a CPO order on them, as it can take over properties? Our common area was bought for €10. There is no value in it; it is only a contract to be bought. Instead of an OMC trying to go through the process with solicitors and the whole lot and spending the thousands of euro it does not have, the Government could step in, put a CPO order on the common area, take possession and give it to the OMC, assuming that could work.

Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Doran mentioned CPOs but that could take even longer.

Mr. Pat Montague:

I will give a concrete - no pun intended - example of the impact of this. It is one of the applicants to the interim remediation scheme. Mr. Hollingsworth mentioned it, but I just want to be clear. It is a complex in Wicklow. My apologies, but it is actually in Kildare next to Senator Casey's constituency. I could see his ears pricking up when I mentioned his constituency, but it is the constituency next door. The issue here is that the OMC was told it would get paid back the €35,000 it had spent on professional fees and it was going to use that money to process the legal application to sort out the common areas. However, because the common areas issue has not been sorted, the OMC is not being paid the €35,000 it is owed. It does not have the money to process this through the courts, so it is absolutely stuck. It is legally complex, financially expensive and also very expensive from a time point of view, so we really need a fast fix on this.

Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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In relation to the capacity of some of the OMCs, is there a concern out there that some of the OMCs genuinely do not have the capacity to bring this forward through the process?

Mr. Pat Montague:

Mr. Doran knows about that.

Mr. Sam Doran:

Yes. I am a volunteer director and we are the only development that has got through the process after two years. It took us four tenders to get through, so it was a lengthy process. When you start off, it is so easy and you get sucked in. The first phase is about how many apartments and floors are in your development. You are told that, if you do not know, do not worry about it and we will sort it out afterwards, so you think this is easy. Luckily enough, we had a very good and competent professional who stuck with us. He did a lot more than he should have had to do. We had some legal people helping us as well. I put that in the submission, namely, that there should be an allowance for legal advice and there should be a guide as to the way forward. What we found when we got into the process was that it became very complex straight away. It was a struggle all the way. I come from a building background, so I would be quite experienced, but I would not have been able to get through the process without backup.

Mr. Pat Montague:

Some of the committee members were at a development in Clarion Quay in Dublin last week. One of the directors of that development has been overseeing this process. They actually have a full professional team working on remediating one block, which went on fire in February 2023. That one director is spending a week per month of his professional time working on this matter in a voluntary capacity. This person is a qualified project manager and a surveyor. Most OMCs do not have that capacity. It is also not fair to rely on that level of effort to see this through because if that is the case, then the OMCs that do not have that capacity will lose out and fall behind. That is adding more on top of them. The difficulties they already have will be multiplied.

Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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In the final minute I have left, are the Housing Alliance's representatives looking for the opportunity to expand on one or two of the ten or 11 items raised in their submission?

Ms Fiona Dunkin:

I will make a point in relation to retrospection. There is a reference in the scheme to fire safety defects, meaning a contravention of requirements under part B of the building regulations at the time of construction. It makes sense that this would be the only remediation that would be covered by the scheme and it aligns with the code of practice. However, what happens when remediation has already been carried out to bring it up to the current standards? Will a partial retrospective remediation be provided if we have gone above and beyond what was required in the best interests of our residents and properties?

Another aspect is the reference in the general scheme to the December 2023 fire safety code of practice and to how works would be carried out in accordance with that, which again makes sense. However, plenty of work has been undertaken prior to this date. The scheme was announced in January 2023, which was well before that date. This seems to be quite a stark issue in the general scheme.

Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms Dunkin.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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My apologies, as I am suffering from man flu, so I will struggle on, if that is okay. I have two quick comments to make and will then have questions for the Irish Council for Social Housing, ICSH, the Housing Alliance, and Mr. Montague and Mr. Doran.

It is important to say some of this stuff on the record. I will not name the development to protect the confidentiality of the folks involved, but in one of the developments we visited recently, the level of defects they have are such that they have 24-hour fire wardens and their insurance premiums have gone through the roof. The apartment owners are paying €8,000 per year in management fees. They recently had a fire and folks had to move out for quite a lengthy period and go through all of the challenges involved in that. It just seems to me that if we are going to design a scheme, it has to fix all of those issues. I am sure for the AHB sector, while it does not have individual owners, the costs, particularly for the very bad schemes, will stack up in the same way.

It struck me when the SCSI representatives were talking about tenant liaison, but we have not mentioned at any stage that Clúid has very considerable experience of two major regeneration schemes for inner city flat projects. They are different but they are also very complex and I think it might be worthwhile putting some of that experience down as to how we take a multi-unit development, engage with the community and take people through what is an equally disruptive process.

I am thinking maybe more of Killarney Court than St. Mary's Mansions. There is something in that because we have spent so much time over the years talking about the funding for the defects. The tenants liaison bit was really well pointed out but these guys have direct experience of that.

My questions are as follows. First of all, for the approved housing bodies sector, has there been any engagement with the Department to date on the general scheme in terms of the issues the sector has? If there has not, we need to ensure that in addition to our committee, there needs to be detailed engagement from the Department with the local government and approved housing body sector prior to the proposed Bill being completed and published because there is a bunch of small but significant technical issues that the sector has raised.

Second, I am unclear on the commercial units. Are we talking about community units in the sense that these would be facilities that are run by or in conjunction with their function as an approved housing body? If they are, it might be worthwhile not calling them commercial units, but calling them what they are. It would be hard to make the case for developers responsible for defects who still control commercial units getting remediation. It would be an easy case for us as a committee to make for a Respond-run crèche, community room or whatever. I am interested in their responses to that.

In response to Mr. Montague and Mr. Doran, after the ICSH, and the Housing Alliance, let us park whether we call it a grant scheme or an end-to-end scheme for a second. Essentially, what I am hearing is we need framework agreements for certified professionals and contractors. We need project managers and tenant liaison. One of the OMCs we met talked about a client adviser which is something more than a project manager and the possibility of stage payments directly to the contractor. That is an end-to-end scheme. You might not call it that, but is that the package of supports that is required to make this work?

I think the committee would really benefit if Mr. Doran talked us through the last two years, maybe after Mr. Montague has come in, just about the obstacles. I do not think people fully understand it until they hear it from the point of view of a director. Those are my three questions.

Ms Lyndsey Anderson:

I can come in on a few of those. I have worked in multiple regeneration projects for a number of years. I agree wholly with the tenant engagement piece, and meaningful tenant engagement, because what you need to do and what our approved housing bodies, AHBs, do well is build trust with their community. There is going to be a trust-building exercise in this process too that the works that have been completed for remediation are also going to make them safe. There is going to be a trust-building element there. That is really important.

On the commercial units, I agree with Deputy Ó Broin. We have a mix of commercial units that would have stayed, in ownership and management, with the AHB. There are probably others that are on a long-term lease. We would need to get numbers for that. I suppose the overall-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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In terms of the ICSH's own stock, what are these units used for?

Ms Lyndsey Anderson:

They would be crèches or community buildings where people would have meet-ups, support programmes or summer programmes.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Would they have private contractors operating them or typically would there be community or not-for-profit operations in them?

Ms Lyndsey Anderson:

They would be predominantly community and not-for-profit, but I do not have the numbers. It would be a mix but there would be a heavy contingent, because we do an awful lot of community building and that requires spaces to do it. We can find that out. I suppose the core component of that is that if you are going to take a whole-building approach, you need to consider those units in whatever way possible. They cannot be left out.

In terms of the interaction with the Department and the Housing Agency, we do have regular engagement with them but it is not structured. We would welcome structures.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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On the general scheme itself?

Ms Lyndsey Anderson:

Back and forth, but we would appreciate some structured engagement on that one.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Does Ms Cosgrove or Ms Dunkin wish to come in?

Ms Fiona Dunkin:

We definitely would be open to providing some sort of assistance in relation to our experience of dealing with inner-city regeneration schemes. We also have a lot of experience in dealing with OMCs. All of our staff who sit on OMCs are trained in the complexities of it. That is the point that we have been making around the Multi-Unit Developments Act reform, that we want to bring all OMC directors up to that level. We are more than happy to share our experiences and our learnings on that.

In relation to engagement with the Department, we have engaged as members of the Construction Defects Alliance. We have had very positive engagement. We are aware that some of the issues contained within the general scheme have been looked at since its publication. For example, legal advice on the common areas has been sought and there is some positive news there based on the discussion last week.

There are general items around retrospection, timelines and procurement. As the Deputy says, there are specific issues there. I mentioned the fire safety code of practice and partial retrospection. There are nitty-gritty issues that we really need to iron out because the impact that they could have on the scheme would be massive. The other item is clarity on relevant evidence. That is required as part of retrospection.

In terms of what AHBs have been doing, as Ms Cosgrove said, we have been pushing ahead with completing works because our ultimate priority is the safety of our residents and also the quality of our homes. We have been pushing ahead but it is more difficult to do that when, although we have reassurances, we need to see action on retrospection sooner rather than later so that we can bring our fellow members of our OMCs along in the process. It is much more difficult to do that when we do not have the retrospection scheme in place.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I presume the larger AHBs or even the smaller ones will be dipping into their own reserves to fund that. It is not that they are dipping into a sinking fund. The reimbursement here is the sinking fund, but are they dipping into a different pool of money which is meant to be set aside for other purposes?

Ms Sharon Cosgrove:

I might come in on that. Ourselves, but also the other members of the Housing Alliance, have used what would be our planned maintenance budget. That has been reallocated to health and safety work. It means deferring quite substantial planned maintenance. It might be redecoration. It might be replacement of kitchens or bathrooms. You are sweating assets like that. They need to be replaced. The quality of our overall services is an issues. Boards have prioritised health and safety above everything else. That is the consequence of that but you can only do that for so long.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Would Oaklee Housing have had to dip into reserves beyond planned maintenance and respond maintenance?

Ms Sharon Cosgrove:

In our case, we have refinanced portfolios in order to unlock equity.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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There is some sense that they could argue that Oaklee Housing's maintenance budget is part of its sinking fund but Oaklee Housing had to do it beyond that.

Ms Sharon Cosgrove:

Yes. Different organisations have done different things but that is what we have done.

On the commercial units, in the case of some of our examples nearly all community rooms, some childcare providers and some - such as Barnardos - not-for-profit organisations in particular areas where there is focused engagement with communities-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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An example in the public domain is some of the big defective blocks on Parnell St where the developer still owns the two commercial units on the ground floor and they are rented out. My view is the State should not be funding the remediation of those. If there are fire stopping or fire safety issues to ensure the safety of the residential units above, that is fine but that is a world of a difference from community and not-for-profit, or even crèche facilities that might be operated by a private crèche provider but the space is integral to the service you provide. There is a strong case to make that a separate category of building that needs to be thought about. I say that by way of advisement.

Ms Sharon Cosgrove:

On Deputy Ó Broin's point on the tenant liaison piece, we have done a rolling decant where we have had an apartment block of over 90 apartments and we have negotiated with Dublin City Council that we can use a couple of audits and we do a rolling decant so we can work our way through the apartments. Tenant liaison is critical to the success of the scheme.

Mr. Ben Dunne:

That is also outside the housing officer role. I come from a technical background. I dealt with a project a number of years ago that was related to water ingress. From experience on other regeneration projects, the role of a plain-speaking tenant liaison officer who is not technical and appreciates the situations that the tenants are in, and particularly where it involves decanting, is invaluable.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I am out of time. I will come back to the lads in the next round, if that is okay.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I wanted to be brief because I have to run and speak in the Chamber in a few minutes. In relation to what was talked about earlier in terms of establishing a tenant liaison role, I cannot exactly remember the language that was used in terms of OMCs. Given the level of complication involved in this, the sheer body of work and the work that Mr. Doran had to put in, surely one person alone is not going to be able to effectively throughput this scheme in conjunction with OMCs. Surely it will require technical expertise above and beyond that.

I was very struck by something Ms Anderson said earlier, namely, that there had been no structured ongoing engagement with the Department on this. Am I right in saying that it has only been sporadic?

I also want to ask about section 8. The code of practice says that it is going to be remediated to the standard that applied at the time. If that was 2005, for example, surely we have moved on a hell of a lot from that. Is it even practically possible to do that or could it be better value for money to bring it up to the standard of 2025? Is it too rigid in that respect?

My last question relates to the period for making an application, which is down as ten years. Is that honestly feasible, given the length of time it has taken to get the previous scheme through?

I know there is a lot in that.

Mr. Pat Montague:

I will say a couple of things and I will let Mr. Doran come in on the supports. We spoke to the committee here on the 14 October. One of the ideas we put forward was to have a project manager to assist. Deputy Sheehan is right. The idea that there is a one-size-fits-all sort of person who is going to fix all of the challenges facing OMCs is probably wishful thinking. More than that may be required. We did talk about-----

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I cannot see how this is going to work without significant reform of the MUD Act to support it.

Mr. Pat Montague:

I will spare Mr. Doran's blushes, but as Deputy Ó Broin referenced last week, part of the reason Mr. Doran's project got through first was because we were dealing with somebody who was absolutely dogged and persistent. He stood outside the gates of this House for months every Wednesday, had thereby built up the networks and connections, and was able to call in stuff. That simply is not available to most OMCs. That is one of the things we found. We cannot leave it to chance.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I do not mean to jump in but our former colleague, Mary Seery Kearney, did a huge amount of work.

Mr. Pat Montague:

Absolutely.

Mr. Sam Doran:

We would not be here today without her.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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It is important that we put on the record that she did a massive amount of work.

Mr. Pat Montague:

Coming back to the issue of current standards, Deputy Sheehan has hit on something. There is a sort of leniency in the way it is being interpreted as to what comes within the ambit of the schemes and what does not. The sort of guidance that has been given to the Housing Agency is that it is to err on the side of generosity in interpreting grant levels and also what would or would not come within the ambit of the scheme. Frankly, it needs to be more than just guidance. There needs to be something more substantial than that. The Deputy is right. I was talking earlier to someone about a computer. We know, for instance, that it would be impossible to get parts now for the systems that would have applied back in the 1990s or whenever. In a sense, it just would not be possible to go back to the future, so to speak. That piece needs some serious thinking by the Department.

Ms Fiona Dunkin:

That is the issue I raised earlier. Would we look at the previous valuation for works at the time? It is very complicated. If it is decided that partial retrospective remediation is the way to go, that would be something, but that needs to be clarified.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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And also in relation to the ten-year period.

Mr. Pat Montague:

We have mentioned that in our submission. I concur with what the Housing Alliance has said. Putting in a three-month timeline from the grant being agreed to the commencement of works is making an assumption about the availability of contractors, which may not be borne out in reality. As was adverted to in the committee's earlier session, the availability of contractors is going to be one of the biggest challenges here. That is particularly because, relatively speaking, some of the pieces of work are small. It speaks to the issue of a framework, which we will come back to.

There is no way all of this is going to be done within ten years. To be frank, if it took 12 years to date for pyrite, which was a much smaller issue in scale, then there is no chance that we are going to get all of this done in ten years. We need to be real here and not create false expectations. The worst thing would be to create expectations. As somebody said, we have been a victim of this. Very generous things were said about when moneys and grants would become available, but it has not happened. The problem is that this creates a lot of disappointment and disenchantment and it leads to loss of confidence. We need to be careful about that. We need to manage expectations. We need to be honest and real with people rather than setting ourselves up for a fall. I say that coming from a trade union background, because it is always one of the golden rules that you underpromise and overdeliver rather than the other way round.

Mr. Ben Dunne:

With a three-month timeline, another consideration is that, even if we get contractors on board, a situation could arise where you have to decant. When we went through the decant process on the project I worked on, it was eight years ago, and we are in a different place now in terms of availability.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The last thing I want to say - I really have to run - is that I am very concerned about head 12 and the part around the relevance for inclusion in the scheme, especially when it goes to appeal. Do the witnesses have a comment in relation to that?

Mr. Pat Montague:

There is a provision for an appeal board within the legislation. We are interested in owners being represented on it, whether they are from the AHB sector, owner-occupiers or whatever. It is important that the lived experience be represented in any appeals mechanism, for instance, like we find with the Labour Court, where we have an employer's representative, an employee's representative and an independent chair. It is important that the voice of the lived experience be heard in any appeals process, rather than it simply being people either with technical expertise or coming from a public sector background.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I have a couple of comments and will then go back to members. Mr. Montague hit on it. We need to have people with the lived experience no matter what area it is. In particular, we need people who have been through it. Mr. Doran has gone through it and got to the other side.

Mr. Sam Doran:

That is when it starts.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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He is not a developer or a builder. He is just someone who bought an apartment. Little did he think when he bought that apartment that he would be sitting here in an Oireachtas committee advocating on behalf of hundreds, if not thousands, of other people in apartments who were in the same position.

Mr. Sam Doran:

I have seen adults crying because the year when they got hit with that toll, they were going to be put out of their apartments by the fire officer. They were told they would lose their insurance, which they did. I got insurance from England. The other thing they were told was that if they lost their insurance, their mortgaged would be called in. They were asked for €15,000 a year for five years. That was the year we had seven interest rate hikes. The one thing I remember about these people - individual homeowners - who were working and trying to pay a mortgage is that they got hit over the head with that.

Somebody had to step up. Deputy Ó Broin remembers when I started Not Our Fault. We had to start campaigning and doing what we could. I would not have got to where I was only for the fact that, as has been said, I kept dogging everybody. I was outside the gates every week and they could not walk by me. The canteen was broken and they all had to go out for something to eat at the time. They had to pass me. I was lucky in the sense that I got good support from TDs and Senators - the whole lot. I had a good competent professional.

As I mentioned, Mary Seery Kearney was giving me legal advice. Any other individual director will not have what I had. In fairness to the Housing Agency, when I rang it up I knew the staff by name because they could give that time to me as they were not dealing with 213 or 214 people. That will not be there, going forward. That is why in the submission I made I said it was very silly in phase 1 not to ask if the owners owned the common areas. Professionals spent six months doing their work, leading people on and telling them their building would be remediated. The residents reacted by saying it was great this was happening but the rug was then pulled out from under them.

The one thing I needed going through that was legal advice because you are signing contracts with builders and insurance people and getting them to accept the contractor's insurance. You then have to sign collateral warranties with all the subcontractors. You then have to sign the grant agreements with them. I am an ordinary guy. I am responsible for 1,000 people in my development. The building is valued at €97 million. The grant is for €15 million. These are huge figures.

As well as legal advice, I wanted to see if there was insurance for directors because I am regarded as the employer. It was said last week - I think it was on Tuesday night - that the Government is not responsible because it does not have a contract. The contract is between me and the contractor. We are liable, so I am looking for directors to have cover for €2 billion, which should extend for seven years after the project. Otherwise, people like me would want to get their head tested to step up. That is where the problem lies.

The project manager was mentioned. We have hit the ground running. We are building the compound to get it up and running because we have to get all the health and safety features in first, such as drying rooms, toilets and canteens for the builders. We are only about ten days into it. We have a project manager who is overseeing the building but, as mentioned, we then put in a project co-ordinator to communicate with all the owners. He started on Monday. Straight away, we knew that I could not be there 24-7 so there had to be somebody on-site to deal with the owners. We have a project co-ordinator. That is the way forward.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Do the basics at the start. Protect the volunteers.

Mr. Sam Doran:

Yes.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Support and give financial grants towards legal advice that an OMC is getting and give a roadmap. I believe Mr. Doran has attempted a roadmap.

Mr. Sam Doran:

Yes. We kept going and there was always one more thing. I got to the stage where the previous Minister said we would have it within seven to ten days. Everybody was having a party. We were told not to worry, that it would go through and would happen. That went on for three months and it did not happen, so we had to go back to the start. We have got through on the fourth tender. Now I know all about tenders, collateral warranties, deeds of variations and things that nobody else would know about.

We got there and I spend my day helping other developments. They are all individual owners who are feeling the pain. Some of these people have bought an apartment with only one or two bedrooms and now they have three kids in it. They bought it as a stepping stone to then go and buy a house. They have outgrown the apartment but they cannot sell it and move on. They are stuck, which is why this needs to move on. We are one development that is moving forward but we need to find a way to speed up the point of rescue.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Speed it up for everybody else.

Mr. Pat Montague:

Just to pick up on what Mr. Doran said, which was something we also discussed last week, apartment living is a central pillar of our development strategy as a country and our housing strategy. It is a small proportion at the moment and we are looking to grow it significantly. Unfortunately, most people who are in this situation advise not to buy an apartment. Their advice, based on this experience, is that people should not buy an apartment. The longer this goes on, the more difficult it becomes to make apartment living a key part of our housing strategy. It undermines it. That is why it is so important to get this right and do it properly.

Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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To follow on from what Mr. Montague said, what has been the experience in relation to those buildings since the introduction of BCAR ten years ago? What is Mr. Montague's experience of BCAR since those regulations were introduced?

Mr. Pat Montague:

In one sense, it is hard to say because it is only in the past few years that building has got going again, post the crash. BCAR came into effect in 2014. Effectively, there was no building happening for a number of years. As was pointed out earlier on, it is a patchy picture. Dublin City Council certainly has a very strong inspection regime but that is not matched elsewhere. To be frank, BCAR is not enough in terms of making sure this does not happen again. As has been pointed out, while it may not be for this legislation, we need to look at the use of special purpose vehicle companies where builders set up a separate company for each development with just enough assets to complete it and put the rest of their assets beyond reach. I will not mention who they were but I know there were a number of developers in recently before the committee. One of them has a list of defective developments that I know of and is developing again. There is a myth that all of those people went bust and it is new people who are building. Actually, there are a lot of new companies but a lot of the same people are out there building.

I do not think BCAR is enough. We need to look at real sanctions for defective building. Frankly, there have been none to date. Until there are consequences, the temptation is always there to push the limit and try to get away with as much as you can. Unfortunately, that has been our experience.

Mr. Ben Dunne:

BCAR is what it is, and it is what we refer to and rely on. In our experience, where we are involved in procuring buildings, we would also have our own team of clerks of works. That is not to say we do not trust our teams of professionals but we will have people going out and looking at the buildings when they are being constructed. I am not saying they are finding anything that is not in compliance but it is just to have an extra pair of eyes.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Prevention is better than cure.

Mr. Pat Montague:

Correct.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I have a final comment and a question to everybody. I know I am like a broken record with the Pyrite Resolution Board but the legislation was published in December 2013. It was passed in early 2014, the board was established in 2014, applications went in and remediation started from 2015 onwards. It then ramped up to a steady stream of approximately €30 million annually. The defective concrete block scheme, which this general scheme is based on - we have been talking about other issues that are not in the scheme - was agreed by the Government in 2018, regulations were introduced in 2020 and the scheme opened in 2021. It did not work and the Government had to rush through amending legislation in 2022. It took a year to do the regulations. The scheme then opened to applications in 2023. Eight years on, in 2025, 900 homes have started remediation in two counties and 200 homes, give or take, have been fully remediated.

All this time, I am trying to work out why we would use that model, which sounds a little bit like Mr. Doran's experience over the past two years. Mr. Doran is not at the end of the stage because he now has to oversee a very large remediation projection in a very large and complex development. The only thing I can conclude is it is about risk. It is about putting the risk on the witnesses. We can talk about project managers, tenant liaison and things like that but if someone is signing the contract, and this applies to the AHBs as much as it does to the OMCs, the State is ensuring that, whatever about what supports it puts in place, the risk, if something goes wrong, is ultimately place on whoever signed the contract. If Mr. Doran has a problem with his contractor, he will be back outside the Dáil to pester us, and rightly so, to try to get it fixed.

Mr. Sam Doran:

No, I would be gone into hiding.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I doubt that. Do the witnesses have a concern about the scale of risk, even if there are framework agreements or dynamic purchasing systems in place for competent professionals and contractors?

Even if there are project managers provided by the Housing Agency and tenant liaisons, etc., are the witnesses concerned about the scale of risk the organisations they represent are likely to have to take on, given how large and complex this is? The real issue here is where the State is deciding to lay the ultimate risk. I am very worried about that.

Mr. Ben Dunne:

As a sector, and Ms Cosgrove and Ms Dunkin can concur with this, we are not hanging about. When the ducks are in a row in terms of retrospection, there are big figures coming in. Tuath Housing has chartered surveyors who have undergone further training and who are now fire safety specialists and fire engineers. In fact my colleague who works on this on the ground is attending the building safety summit in London. That is why he is not here today. We are trying to be as responsible as possible in terms of our procurement of specialists. Mr. Hollingsworth from the SCSI was here earlier. We obviously do all our compliance with our due governance in terms of getting the correct specialisms on board to minimise any risk. That is the nature of governance. Scale is a big problem, but we are cracking on and have spent millions already.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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In terms of the smaller AHBs that do not necessarily have all that in-house expertise and experience, and maybe have not had a new stock pipeline to the same extent, even those that will get access to the scheme without the changes that have been outlined, is there concern about the risk for them? Is Ms Anderson's organisation a little under capacity in terms of its willingness to do the job, although I fully respect that it will go at this hammer and thongs?

Ms Lyndsey Anderson:

There definitely was. It is already happening here. We have talked a bit about our moral obligation, but we also have an objective legal obligation. We have to remedy buildings that are unsafe. We have to keep tenants safe. It is in our interests and their interests to do so. It is an asset management strategy. It is a regulation.

With the AHB sector, it is similar to the OMC in that there is a bit of a tiered system. There are going to be AHBs that have a large number of technical staff who understand all this and then there are the other ones that will learn as they go. The latter have already been learning. There is going to be a large element of risk. The question for us is that there is a risk of doing it and a risk of not doing it.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Sure.

Ms Lyndsey Anderson:

Of course, we have to do it. As soon as we understand that there are defects in a building, that is a notifiable event to our regulator. We see our insurance premiums go up. As a result, it is in our interests and everybody else's interests to make these units good. The risk is significant. It will be inefficient if it is a case of "Let's see how we go" or "Let's try it and see who has the capacity and who doesn't."

The Housing Agency is a massive support. It is referred to throughout the general scheme. We represent the 270-plus AHBs. Consistency across all local authorities and how we do things are both important. Consistency in the approach from the Housing Agency is needed, but there must be a standardisation of that approach. If we can start to pre-empt the concerns of the AHBs that have not engaged so far in this process, then we would be delighted to work with the Housing Agency to create a more standardised approach that would help minimise risk. It is just about moving through it fluidly. We have had a lot of learnings. We do not need to go through another learning phase. We have done it on the other schemes; we have done it on the interim schemes. We know enough now that we can start building up capacity. If it is not in house within the AHBs, then it can be with our partners in the Housing Agency and the Department. I stated earlier that we did not have structural engagement. That is true on this, but we have very positive engagement generally with the Department.

Mr. Pat Montague:

In terms of balance of risk, one of the factors we have to bear in mind is that we are a fair bit down the road in terms of the Government's approach to this, which is a grant-based scheme. We have the heads of the Bill. The legislation is obviously being worked on in the background. Changing horses at this stage would be a significant risk because it would mean that we would be changing the approach. The concern in that regard would be that we would lose a huge amount of time in terms of having to start again. The Deputy has a view in terms of repurposing existing legislation, but changing approach would mean that we would have to go through the processes we are currently going through again.

I will make a final point about risk. The Deputy is right. A huge amount being put on OMCs here. We are hoping for much more support. The indications are positive. There is a stakeholder forum that involves ourselves, the Housing Agency and the Department. We will meet again on 3 December, and I hope we will see some further evidence of support. The Deputy is right that there is a concern that the grant-based model has major flaws. However, ditching it and starting again would also give rise to a major concern. We hope we will end up with a hybrid model that will provide much more support to OMCs and be much more fit for purpose than what was originally envisaged. We have indications that there has been some change in thinking in that regard on the part of both the Housing Agency and the Department. Obviously, however, we will wait to see what is actually produced.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We have had a very detailed discussion. There are more discussions are to be had. I thank everyone for coming and for giving of their time this late in the evening. The committee plans to have further engagement on the general scheme next Tuesday. We also plan to have a final report in the new year. We are also working on the residential tenancies legislation. We will have as much engagement as we need to have in order that we can put forward as strong a report as possible to the Department.