Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I again thank Deputy Madigan for raising the issue. It is certainly not a case of us washing our hands and if I could identify an area where we could help, it is something we would look at. I certainly will raise the issue with Clúid housing association, as we have responsibility for it. Deputy Madigan mentioned NAMA as well.

The Department does not have any statutory role in resolving defects in privately owned buildings, and these are privately owned buildings. Apart from the statutory powers, we do not even have a budget for this matter. Building defects are matters for resolution between the contracting parties involved, which is the home owner, the builder, the developer, their respective insurers, and the structural guarantee or warranty scheme in relation to Homebond, Premier Guarantee or whichever company is involved. These are issues that need to be resolved at that level.

Certainly, I will raise the issue. As the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, is not here today, I will bring the matter Deputy Madigan has raised to his attention and see if there is any line of hope there as well.

I believe there are avenues open to the groups in the situation and they need to lead the residents through all the proper procedures there. The Department does not have the statutory power to intervene.

The primary responsibility for compliance with the requirements of the building regulations rests with the designers, the builders and the owners of the buildings. All of those are stakeholders and all have involvement in this. I believe the residents need to work this out through the system involving all of those stakeholders.

Enforcement of the building regulations is a matter for the 31 local authorities, one of which Deputy Madigan identified here today. The local authorities have extensive powers of inspection and investigation as well.

The issues are a matter for the receiver to the developer in this case and the owners or the residents and the management company to resolve. I would hope, maybe, through the AGM or other methods, that there can be communication to resolve this issue with all those players together. There should be scope to do that.

Where problems cannot be resolved through dialogue or through mediation, it may be necessary to explore other courses of action. No doubt the residents and all involved will look at that too. I will talk to colleagues in the Department to see if there is any other information that we can provide from other cases that might be of assistance but I want to make clear that we do not have a statutory role to be able to intervene here to help.

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