Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise again this critical issue for my constituency. Ongoing complaints are still being made to my office about the pyrite infill disaster affecting new housing in the north fringe in Baldoyle and Clongriffin in Dublin North-East. Since mid-summer, residents in these and other north side and west side estates have been devastated to learn from Menolly Homes about the problem mineral pyrite which has been used in excessively high concentrations in the floors and foundations of vast new estates. Pyrite was formerly known as fool's gold and is an iron sulphide that expands if exposed to air or water and reacts with oxygen and water to form sulphuric acid. This causes much cracking of walls and ceilings and results in moving doors.

Residents in Drynam Hall estate in Kinsealy, Beauparc in Clongriffin and at the Coast, Baldoyle, are enduring long months of testing and dislocation in which ground floors of affected homes are being excavated and removed down to a depth of 3 m. The defective infill was sourced by Menolly Homes and other builders from a quarry located near Ballycoolin in Dublin 15 which is owned by the Irish Asphalt division of the Lagan Group.

In my view and that of my constituents, the response of the Dublin City Council manager, the Fingal County Council manager and the Ministers for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to this crisis in the construction industry has been feeble and totally inadequate. The only response from the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has been to remind the local authorities of existing and completely inadequate building regulations.

At a recent meeting with the Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council managers, I was again disappointed that they have not ordered an immediate and full traceability audit of all building sites supplied by this quarry. Even more astonishingly, they have not contacted the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to request the immediate closure of this quarry which, incredibly, remains open. This is a grave dereliction of duty by the two Ministers and the two local authority managers concerned.

There were earlier allegations that this pyrite contaminated infill was also used in major infrastructural projects and the owners of the quarry concerned were partners on the construction of the Dublin Port tunnel.

The Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council managers argued that the key problem in this matter is the self-regulation of the building industry. Resources have not been provided by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to permit these two and the other 34 major local authorities to police building standards covering the housing delivered to often vulnerable young householders with huge mortgages to repay. Legislation to empower and resource local authorities fully to invigilate house building quality standards was clearly urgent five to seven years ago but now, with more than 500,000 new homes built without effective quality standards, the horse has clearly bolted and young mortgage payers are left with often disastrous results.

The two Ministers, Deputies Gormley and Ryan, have conveniently forgotten many of the strongly asserted beliefs they espoused in Opposition. They formerly supported the Labour Party Bill introduced by the former Deputy, Seán Ryan, to forbid the granting of new planning permissions for newly built estates before existing estates were fully finished to an adequate standard. Likewise, there seems to be no sympathy from the Green Party Ministers or their colleagues for householders with rapidly cracking walls. The construction company concerned, Killoe Developments, refuses to discuss the matter or acknowledge any liability based on defective and self-enforced building regulations. The Minister, Deputy Gormley, simply refuses to answer questions on this company's behaviour.

This appalling development in the north side and west side estates and elsewhere in Leinster has been regrettably very poorly reported in the media, with the notable exception of the Evening Herald, owing to the major newspapers' total dependence on commercial and residential development advertising in addition to auctioneers' advertising. The Irish Times on Thursday is often dwarfed by the supplement advertising commercial property and residential housing. Several national newspapers seem just as compromised in this matter as past politicians who depended on developers for financial support.

Self-regulation in the building industry must be brought to an immediate end. A dedicated task force led by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the managers of Fingal County Council and Dublin City Council must investigate immediately the closure of the affected quarry, conduct a full traceability audit of its products, immediately implement SR21 of the guidance document of the National Standards Authority of Ireland and establish a new national standard on pyrite and other problem minerals present in infill, especially for housing construction.

Given the numbers of citizens affected by the present awful circumstances, the Minister should establish a national pyrite investigation and monitoring agency based on the initiatives taken by the authorities in Ontario and Quebec. Failure by the Minister or local authorities to act will result almost certainly in a considerable charge on the two local authorities, the Department and taxpayers in future. This matter should be addressed urgently and taken very seriously.

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