Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

On 25 May 2011, a full two and a half years ago, I raised the pyrite crisis with the Taoiseach during Leader's Questions, with the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government sitting beside him. At that stage, the Government was, to put it mildly, not anxious to get involved and was attempting to adopt a hands-off approach to the problem, hoping that some other agencies would sort it out. During that exchange in the House I called for a task force to be set up immediately and for a remediation scheme to be put in place but the Government pointedly refused to take that course of action. Subsequently that has been done but it should not have taken two and a half years to get to this point, considering the enormous suffering that people are enduring, with the acute anxiety and distress of watching their homes disintegrate around them because of pyrite heave. It should have been the subject of immediate and emergency action rather than the long, drawn-out process we have seen.

We are dealing here with the poisonous legacy of the buccaneering speculators and profiteers in the construction industry - in the housing sector in particular - in the course of the property bubble. There was criminal negligence in terms of the quality of homes produced by a range of developers and builders, as we have seen to such enormous cost to ordinary people. Profits came first and safety and other standards a very poor second. The Minister keeps repeating that the State has no responsibility for this situation, which is absolutely untenable. The question is - where was the oversight in regard to all of these issues and the huge problems that have emerged? On the issue of fire hazards for example, Priory Hall and a number of other housing projects which have come to public attention are only a very small percentage of the number of potential fire traps that were built in this State. Where was the oversight by regulators, local authorities and so forth? The same question applies with regard to pyrite. The pyrite problem has been discussed and debated in construction and engineering literature for at least 30 years. Detailed reports were published 20 years ago on the problem as it emerged in parts of Britain. It is quite clear that since pyrite can have such a catastrophic effect there should have been a process of testing for the iron sulphide which causes pyrite heave.

While the State bears a big responsibility in this, undoubtedly the main culprits are those in the construction industry who cut corners and did not adhere to proper standards. I support this Bill in so far as it goes but it is far too restrictive. It does not in any way recognise the extent of the problem. To talk about 1,000 homes as if that was the limit of the problem is to fail to face reality. Unfortunately, the number of homes affected is far greater than that and will be found to be so. A lot more will have to be done. In 2011 I called for upfront emergency funding to be provided by the State so that people would have not to wait for years for cases to go through courts to force the speculators and developers to provide remediation funds. However, I said that the funds provided by the State must be clawed back very quickly from those who carried the main responsibility for this situation. I believe that the major players in the construction and quarrying industries and the developers who are responsible for this problem must be levied so that the tax payer is not left to carry yet another can, on top of the billions they are carrying for the speculation of the banks in the self same industry in the course of the property bubble.

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