Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will convey to the Minister the views expressed. The Government is not hiding behind anything but the fact is the judge has been appointed to do a job by the court and has specifically indicated that he wants to be given time to do that job. So we must be careful about what we say and allow him to do the job he has been given. I will certainly convey the views expressed and I believe, like other Members of the House, that the priority is to get people back into their homes if they are habitable as soon as possible and to ensure that those residents are the most important people in all of this. We in no way stand over what was done in the past. Terrible things were done in the construction industry in the past and we are trying to clean up that mess, which is why we are bringing forward new regulations and new ways of doing things.

The point made by Deputy Cowen about the planning regulator and today's announcement is not really relevant to this debate but I will comment on it. We have made it quite clear that we will implement the recommendations of the Mahon report, including the recommendation with regard to a planning regulator. I wrote to Deputy Ciarán Lynch when he was chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht, asking that we have a discussion with the committee about what it sees as the best way to implement that recommendation. It could be by way of An Bord Pleanála being the body, a separate body or the Office of the Ombudsman. There are a number of ways of implementing that recommendation but we certainly intend to implement the recommendations of the Mahon tribunal in full.

In respect of Deputy Broughan's point about housing, I share his belief in the need to provide housing for people. We need to do this in a number of flexible ways.

The Exchequer simply does not have the kind of money it used to have and with which houses were built in the straightforward way.

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