Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Broughan has more legal advice at his disposal than the Attorney General, and I accept that he may have, but I have to go on the advice I get. The €10 million is initial funding with additional funding being allocated from the capital stimulus programme in early 2014 over a two year period. This scheme will be reviewed in 2015 and post-2015 funding requirements will be considered at that stage having regard to developments over the interim period. While it is not possible to confirm the number of dwellings that will require remediation after 2015, the considered view is that the numbers will be a small fraction of the number of dwellings identified in the pyrite report.

I again thank Deputies and my officials for painstakingly seeking to improve the scheme over the last while. It is ironic that we are approving this scheme in the week that is in it, the first anniversary of the untimely death of the late Deputy Shane McEntee, to celebrate the great, Christian involvement he had with so many families over the years regarding this matter. I hope we will be in a position to conclude the legislation tomorrow and to end 2013 by giving hope to a considerable number of people with this scheme.

The €50 million we were expecting to receive from the financial institutions was a loan to be paid back by the levies we were imposing on the quarrying and construction sector. For legal and constitutional reasons there was a doubt about it being possible to implement that. I will take every opportunity I get to extract necessary financial support from any sector, quarrying, construction or insurance, based on the legal cases before the courts and an analysis of the outcome of those cases. I will seek redress from those sectors at the earliest opportunity.

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