Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I open my contribution by paying tribute to the thousands of homeowners, family members, friends, community activists and community leaders who demonstrated so strongly and positively in Dublin today. I also commend the proposers of the motion, and Sinn Féin for dedicating their Private Members' time to this very important issue. It strikes a chord with any Deputy who represents a constituency that has been affected by pyrite because there are many similarities to the that crisis.

The housing crisis in general has many faces and casts many a long shadow. In this Chamber and in committees we have been talking about affordability, homelessness, land prices, public housing, land use and social housing provision but there is another face of the housing crisis, namely, the issue of construction defects. It has manifested itself in the pyrite crisis and with the work done by the Construction Defects Alliance, which works on behalf of apartment owners. It is estimated up to 100,000 apartments suffer from defects in construction and it costs an average of maybe €15,000 each to repair them.

We also have this crisis, the mica crisis, which first came into view in 2013, the very year the pyrite remediation scheme got up and running. I commend the work of a number of Teachtaí Dála, including my predecessor Brendan Ryan, who did an awful lot of work to ensure the pyrite remediation scheme got up and running early enough in the lifetime of that Government at a time when there was very little money around. That scheme is still going. This is not easy. It is not easy for the homeowners to go through what they have to go through and they are still going through it. However, it is working, it is getting homes remediated and it is getting people back into their homes.

People will point out differences between the mica and pyrite crises. There are two differences. The first is a difference of geography because the pyrite crisis is mainly a greater Dublin region matter and that relating to mica affects Donegal, north-west Mayo and, perhaps, parts of Clare. There is also a difference in scale, as the mica crisis is greater than the pyrite crisis in terms of number of homes affected and the structural damage evident. The Minister and we, as Deputies, know from our work locally that there is such an invasive nature to remediating homes that have been affected by pyrite. It is not an easy job. You have to go in and rip out the centre of a house. The house will remain standing, however, and can be redecorated to go back as it was before. In the case of mica, the structural problem affects the entirety of the house and involves an entire rebuild. The principles of these crises are the same, however, and, in the case of homes affected by pyrite, the State held up its hands when homeowners were let down with the biggest purchase they would make in their life. It is not only the biggest financial commitment but one that involves such emotional investment. People are buying homes in which they will live and in which they may raise families, create memories and grow old. People invested in that but the State let them down because it did not have a sufficiently robust regulatory system for the standards of building equipment. It is what was acknowledged by the State with the pyrite crisis and the same principle applies with homes affected by mica. The State must acknowledge this and step in with a scheme.

There are people who are responsible for the poor and substandard quality of the blocks and everything else, and they must play a part. That will not come to the amount required to resolve the problem so the State will have to step in. That will hurt but it is the reality. Everything has a beginning. In the late 1980s, the State absolved itself of a standards system for building equipment. We had it up to 1988 but it was unwound and folded into Eolas and then Forbairt. It was never really replaced and when it came to the early 2000s - the Celtic tiger era when we threw up houses and apartments all over the place - we had no robust and trusted standard for anything related to building, whether it was countertops, rolled steel joists, timber, blocks or infill. That is how it happened. The State is at fault and it must listen to the people outside today. It must support a process of 100% redress.

This is not about cost but the principle and justice. What are we going to allow to happen? Will we allow these people have their houses and homes fall down around them so they will have to rebuild them all over again? There are financial and emotional considerations in this. It is pretty clear so how many more cases like Priory Hall do we need? How many cases of homes affected by pyrite and mica do we need? We have a precedent in the pyrite remediation scheme and we can improve and learn from it. We can get something up and running. We had that scheme when the country had no money to fix the pyrite problem and now the country is in a much healthier state, the Covid-19 pandemic notwithstanding. Our finances are in far ruder health.

There is a housing crisis relating to affordability, the provision of public housing or even with this matter of the remediation of construction defects for apartment owners and in homes affected by pyrite or mica. This must be covered by a solution. The State has a role to play here. I know the Minister and his Government are not opposing the motion but we need to see action. The scheme currently in place for remediation does not meet the standard required. The Government should look at the pyrite remediation scheme as a template and improve it so we can give these people some hope. They have had nearly a decade with no hope or answers.

Many of us have held a block in our hands and it seems like one of the strongest things one could ever hold. Holding a block in your hands and having it crumble by just exerting the force of your fingers on it is frightening if the roof over your children's heads is supported by blocks of the same kind. I hope we will see something from the Government that will provide comfort and some way out for the more than 5,000 homeowners affected by this.

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