Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

This week many homeowners and management companies of defective buildings, who were led down a path by the Government in relation to securing loan funding for the remediation of latent defects caused by rogue developers during the boom years, found that the path set out by the Government led straight into a brick wall. The Minister for Finance indicated in an answer to a parliamentary question in December that the Home Building Finance Ireland, HBFI, scheme would be in a position to consider applications from this month by apartment owners and management companies to undertake remedial works on latent defects, but it turns out that it is closed to assisting homeowners who face the appalling prospect of having to undertake work on their own coin just to make their homes safe.

Department of Finance correspondence to a Government Minister from November of last year states that “there is nothing contained in the HBFI legislation that would prevent such a funding application being considered.” Now, however, it seems there is. The HBFI is not able to imagine a situation where a remediation application would be funded, due to the possibility of further estimated costs once remediation is commenced if further issues present, and the inability of most management companies to provide security beyond personal guarantees from apartment owners. I put it to the Minister of State, Deputy English, that apartment owners have been led up a blind alley by the Government. Will the Minister of State please tell the House what happened here? Did the Government really not understand its own legislation well enough honestly to tell people affected by latent defects that there was not a snowball’s chance in hell that the HBFI fund would be of any use to them? Why would the Government direct them with this false hope?

While the affected apartment owners and management companies deserve an answer as to why the one direction pointed out to them turned out to be a dead end, they also deserve a comprehensive and accurate answer as to what the Government intends to do to assist them.

I first raised this issue in the Dáil with the former Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, more than two years ago. A Green Party motion has since been backed by the Dáil to "prepare and publish options for the financing and carrying out of remedial works to defective housing units, that will form the basis for a nationwide scheme, enshrined in legislation, for the orderly remediation of legacy defects in housing." There has also been the cross-party Safe As Houses? report that called for a redress scheme to assist homeowners with latent defects and for an information and advice service for those affected by non-compliance and regulatory failure.

The most straightforward part of the Safe As Houses? recommendation was the call to set up an advice service. After the fiasco of the Government's misinformation on the HBFI scheme it is clear that this type of service is needed more than ever.

Has the Government even looked at doing it? Does the Government intend to conduct a review, as called for by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, to ascertain how widespread and serious the problem of defective builds across the country is and, if not, why not? One cannot accurately assess potential reliefs without a comprehensive picture of the problem. Does the Government intend to investigate, or has it already investigated, the possibility of the provision of any sort of assistance for affected homeowners in the form of an advice service or the provision by some other means of accurate information for people dealing with defects; some form of tax relief, in particular given the reliefs given currently to builders and developers and those engaged in a wide range of other activities, in the form of VAT relief on remediation works, income tax relief or property tax relief; a low-interest State loan fund to assist those who cannot pay for remedial works, or a redress scheme for the orderly remediation of latent defects?

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