Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State's response understates the scale of this problem. It is a fact that there are thousands of dwellings that are not compliant with fire safety standards and it is a miracle that multiple fatalities in this regard have not occurred. According to the Minister of State's response, it is understood that opinions of compliance were provided by the developer and its agents for the selling of the dwellings. That is it in a nutshell. Documents were signed that said these dwellings were in compliance with standards but they are not. There are thousands more dwellings that are not compliant. As a minimum, the State must accept responsibility because these problems arose due to a system of self-certification. They must be rectified now at no cost to the residents before lives are lost.

With regard to Newlands Development Limited, we have concrete proof that fire safety standards were ignored in Balbriggan and Lucan. Will all of its developments be examined and a team sent in at Newlands' expense to remediate all those developments? There are other timber frame developments around the city and I assume that Dublin is no different from the rest of the country that is similarly vulnerable. It is not good enough for the local authority to sit back and tell residents that it is their fault and that the matter must be sorted out between them and the developer. Will the Minister order all local authorities, particularly those in areas with timber frame housing, to open up their books and initiate enforcement proceedings where it is known that a developer has been responsible for ignoring fire safety standards? When the local authority was the seller of these units, can we at least assume that it will respect the people to whom it sold the properties and engage with and undertake to assist them in getting remediation works completed?

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