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

I thank the Deputy. If I miss some of the questions, I ask him to remind me what they are.

I am not sure if the proposals he mentioned about preventing increases in rent and evictions will go to Cabinet this week or next week but the intention is to go to Cabinet with them. There are protections there which were supported by everyone in the House.

We discussed legislation at the end of March and I committed to the Deputy that when we had the report from the ESRI on rent arrears, we would be involved in consultation. It remains to be seen who is in government or in opposition because we might all be in new positions by the time that report arrives. If I am in this position or the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, is still in his position, we will discuss that matter and seek support for any changes that are needed. I have not seen the research yet but we will, of course, act on it when we get it. That is important and we committed to that.

On latent defects, I apologise to the Deputy. He asked twice for a meeting on the issue and there was a mix-up on my side and that of the Minister. I am happy to meet the Deputy. The timing of his request crossed over with guidelines that were about to be published. I felt there was no point in either me or the Minister meeting the Deputy and pretending that something was coming when it was not. It was best to wait until the guidelines were published, which happened seven or eight days ago. I am happy to meet the Deputy and go through those guidelines with him. Over time, we might need to tweak those guidelines because I know there are some issues around planning in Mayo and so on but I am happy to talk to the Deputy about that as well. The Deputy and his colleagues have engaged with me on that matter many times over the years.

I recognise the support of the House for that scheme because it is quite a commitment of taxpayers' money. It was originally to address the problem of pyrite in many houses and that has been successful - nearly 2,000 houses have been fixed over the past seven or eight years. Mica is an issue that is now relevant in Mayo and Donegal. This House supported addressing that through the last budget. We now have a process to address that. It is important that people have confidence in the system and know that if their house is fixed, it is fixed properly and is safe to live in. Naturally, it will take a couple of years to implement. No one is saying that every house will be fixed straight away but the commitment is there and that is the bottom line.

The Deputy also asked about the local authorities and who is monitoring the NZEB regulations. The local authorities and certifiers of sites are doing that through the building control measures. People in this House may disagree but most people internationally accept that the building control measures in this country are quite good.

I am not saying they were good years ago but they have been quite good in the last number of years. There is always room to improve on the number of people involved in that sector. The process is right. We have the shared service model now. There is no harm in adding more people to that as resources permit, to constantly monitor and increase that as well. The independent certifier process is a help also. That is the responsibility. Those regulations will probably have more of an impact for the years ahead because there was a transition period out to October or November this year. It is important that we do that as well.

The Deputy asked about local authorities and if we are going to add to NZEB again. We monitor the costs and benefits of this every couple of years. We believe at this stage that nearly every new house is at an A1 rating and a high standard has been set. Naturally we will review that. We are always looking for high quality design, implementation and construction with all local authority and social housing. I think we have achieved that. More directives are being worked on at European level around decarbonisation and we are part of a working group on that. That is the whole life cycle. We will look at that and it might bring more changes to the products used. On the retrofit programme, I heard commentary on the previous scheme. The new scheme is monitored and we do a BER check at the start and end of the process.

There was one more question so I will come back to the Deputy on that. I do not want to use up his colleagues' time. The marine regulations have to come through the committee.

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