Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy Farrell for raising this important issue. As he has made clear, the Minister, Deputy Phil Hogan, has already taken appropriate measures to address problems arising from the presence of pyrite in hard core material under the concrete ground floor slabs in housing developments.

In September 2011, the Minister established an independent panel with the remit of seeking to facilitate a resolution of pyrite contamination in private housing. This panel is chaired by Mr. Brendan Tuohy, a former Secretary General at the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. Other members are Mr. Noel Carroll, a former senior housing adviser in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, and Mr. Malcolm Edger, a civil engineer. All three members have engineering backgrounds which is essential to the understanding of the complexities of the pyrite problem and they also bring a broad range of other skills to the panel. The panel is currently engaged in a broad-ranging consultation process with key stakeholders, including public representatives, industry representatives, including quarries and their representative bodies, local authorities, representative bodies of the insurance and banking industries, regulatory bodies and representatives of home owners affected by pyrite. The Minister has asked the chairperson of the panel to ensure its task is completed in as short a time as possible and to submit a report to him early this year. The Minister has indicated he will place this report in the public domain.

However, it must be understood that responsibility for compliance with the building regulations rests with the owner of a building and-or the builder or developer who carries out the work. The State bears no liability, a position supported by the outcome of the recent High Court case in which the quarry which supplied the hard core for a construction project was found liable for the supply of defective pyrite material. The case is currently under appeal to the Supreme Court.

As regards the household charge, the Minister will give further consideration to the position of owners of certain pyrite affected houses upon receipt of the report of the panel. The Minister will also need to consider issues surrounding the identification of relevant problematic properties.

The Local Government (Household Charge) Regulations 2012 contain the list of unfinished estates to which a waiver of payment of the household charge will apply in 2012. This list is also available from the website, www.householdcharge.ie. Some estates which are in Deputy Farrell's constituency may be included in that list.

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