Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State, Deputy English, and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, are still examining this matter, which affects some developments in my constituency as well. The primary difficulty in all of this is that if the State, in effect the taxpayer, were to take on the liability for repairing defects in private homes and buildings, the costs could run into many billions of euro, which would then have to be taken out of other budgets, whether for social housing, health or through massive tax increases or action on climate change. That is the reality of the situation.

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