Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support the Sinn Féin amendment. I am a qualified blocklayer by trade and I have helped to build many houses. As previous speakers stated, the block is the main part of a house, along with a foundation and the roof. There are many people in County Limerick who have issues arising from pyrite. I have seen a couple of houses that have it and I will be calling to more next week. These are mainly from the 1980s and 1990s. People did not realise what was wrong with the houses but reporting of the problem has escalated over the past number of years. I have videos on my phone showing cracks in houses that are scary. That is why I support the amendment.

Years ago when houses were built, the blocks were tipped from a lorry. That was instead of getting them off by crane as they do today. Sometimes, if blocks could not be procured in time for the building schedule, people would get them from a different quarry. There are quarries where the owners knew they had a problem so it is now time for them to own up to it and work to rectify the problem. We are talking about homes belonging to people and families. They should be there for the next generation and we must fix them.

There are people with pyrite on one side of their house but not on the other because they used two different suppliers when building. It is very important that all these people are looked after. At minimum, the local property tax should be waived but these people should get their houses and family homes back. They should be able to future-proof it for the next generation.

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