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

Perhaps I was not clear in my first answer. I think we have made progress on that particular area. The Department got legal advice because I do not expect any board to listen to me as an individual Minister of State, so we backed that up with legal advice and an opinion. I understand the board then got its own legal advice and we have now finally made progress on that situation, which affects a certain number of people. I believe that, as of the meeting last week, a certain amount of progress has been made, so perhaps the Deputy will be a little happier on that situation. I am aware there are still other scenarios we want to tease through. Nonetheless, we have made some progress because we did not give up in the past six months. We kept pursuing this but we used proper legal advice and legal interpretation, not just my opinion or somebody else's. That was as a result of us all coming together to tease through some of the problems. I am happy for us to do that again to facilitate the process.

To be clear, more than 2,000 people have made applications at this stage, in excess of 1,800 are in the system, more than 1,400 have had their houses resolved to a satisfactory condition, and approximately 500 will have their houses remediated this year as well. We have made good progress, as the Deputy has acknowledged. There are other scenarios which we will deal with. I am happy to consult the Deputy to do that.

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