Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On the basis of reports of persons who had worked in the industry. There are 24 key recommendations in the report and that is what I really want to ask the Minister about. On publication, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, gave important stakeholders, including the Construction Industry Federation, CIF, the Irish Insurance Federation, the Irish Banking Federation, the Irish Concrete Federation and HomeBond, a deadline of the end of September 2012 to come together and respond with a comprehensive solution for all pyrite-affected homeowners. There are five days to go until the end of September. Can the Minister give us an interim report on this and tell us whether all of the stakeholders engage with the process?

One of the striking notes in the report, as the Minister will remember, is that the experience of the Pyrite Panel in dealing with the financial, legal and insurance sectors was hugely disappointing. For example, the report states on page 105 that "the Panel was amazed to learn that little or no discussions about the pyrite issue and its resolution had taken place within the representative bodies (or, indeed, the professional institutions), prior to the Panel seeking the views of the relevant bodies." Will the Minister commit to give significant Dáil time in coming weeks to report on the outcome of these negotiations that he has been having with the representative bodies?

If there has not been full engagement by all the stakeholders involved, the report recommends the imposition of a levy on the industry to get the pyrite problem sorted. As the action group has rightly stated, if the stakeholders are not willing to provide a solution the levy must be imposed as quickly as possible. Has the Minister finalised plans for a process of imposing a levy on stakeholders who will not engage?

Recommendation 2 in the report proposes an identification system for clarifying affected housing of red, amber and green. As the Minister will be aware, red represents a house which requires immediate remediation, amber represents one which requires ongoing monitoring and green represents a house which requires no further action. Concerns have been raised, however, that all houses that have been identified as contaminated by pyrite will not be remediated. I understand, also from the Pyrite Action group, that the phrase, "significantly damaged" has yet to be defined and the campaign group believes that the owner of any pyrite-affected whose damaged house is in the amber category will be left with a home that he or she will never be able to sell.

In addition, homeowners are worried that pyrite-affected homeowners are already being blacklisted by banks and insurers. The action group has asked that the Minister provide an immediate commitment to ensure that all homes containing reactive pyrite are systematically remediated and asks whether he has taken any steps to ensure mortgage providers and insurers are not blacklisting developments.

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