Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage and a member of the Business Committee. My understanding from the discussion at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage is that the members of the committee are more than happy to meet next week for six, seven, eight or nine hours, or however long it takes to go through these amendments in detail and scrutinise them to ensure we can get the best Bill possible. Members of the committee will make themselves available to do that.

That proposal was discussed at this morning's meeting of the Business Committee. No one present made any objection to it. There was a very strong view from many of the groups and parties represented there that enough time should be allowed next week to go through the amendments. The Government Chief Whip committed to check with the Department and the Minister to see if that would be acceptable. We can meet next week for six, seven, eight or nine hours, or however long it takes to discuss the amendments properly to ensure we get the best Bill possible.

All we need is for the Minister to okay that proposal. I urge him to do so because if he approves it, we will give the six, seven, eight or nine hours needed next week at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage to go through the Bill in detail and discuss all the amendments. I urge the Minister to give the green light so that we can do this Bill justice. Considerable work has gone into it. It is important that we get it right and do not fall short because of time at this stage. It is entirely down to the Minister to give it the okay. There are no objections from any other quarters that I am aware of.

In discussing this Bill, I want to recall the recent words of our President, Michael D. Higgins, who stated:

There is a powerful word. Home. Home. Home is about the about the outpouring of intimacies and emotions. Sometimes it is only a very simple thing but it is where personalities are developed, where relationships with others are developed. It is a place to come back to, a place to depart from.

When we talk about this Bill and defective blocks and we talk about crumbling buildings, we are talking about the place where families seek shelter and refuge.

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They invest their lives and emotions to create a home. It is more than a building. When the place people call their home and their refuge becomes unsafe, and they have no place to return to to escape that stress, it creates huge pressure and puts people under immense pressure. We have all the fallout from that, including mental health problems and everything else that other Deputies and Ministers have spoken about.

The Government is bringing forward a Bill for a remediation scheme that in its estimation will cost €2.75 billion. There are four things we should expect from it at the very least. They are that there would be proper scrutiny of the Bill and every effort would be made to recover costs and go after those who are responsible. We should expect that not a single quarry would continue to operate that is producing substandard materials that lead to people's homes crumbling. We should also expect that every measure necessary is put in place to ensure this never ever happens again. That is not too much for anyone to expect.

The Minister can change the way we are scrutinising the Bill. As we speak, only two hours is being allotted next week for Committee and Remaining Stages, which means we will not be able to give it the scrutiny and put forward proposals to improve and change the Bill if needed, or to hear the Minister's response. The deadline for amendments was 11 a.m. today, before we even began Second Stage, which is not following proper process. There is the use of the guillotine and the legislation is being rammed through in a way that is utterly unacceptable.

There is a pattern developing with this Minister. When legislation is not contentious, such as the first parts of the electoral reform legislation, where we saw much consensus, we are given ample time to discuss it on Committee Stage and go through different amendments. When it comes to complex and contentious legislation, or legislation that needs proper and detailed scrutiny, we see the time allowed for discussion shoehorned into an impossible slot to give it proper attention. We know from previous experience that rushed legislation is bad legislation. I appeal to the Minister again on this. Only one person can remove the obstacles to the housing committee having nine hours or whatever amount of time it takes next week to go through the Bill on Committee Stage, and that is the Minister. I appeal to him to agree to that proposal because nobody else has objected to it.

The timelines imposed mean affected homeowners have not had a chance to study the Bill in detail, make suggestions and give the feedback they would like. We heard the statements before from affected homeowners, who engaged over the past year or number of months in good faith, working in detail through different issues. They are deeply concerned, disappointed and very frustrated that the work they have done is not reflected in this Bill. In fairness, they put their hearts and souls into the process.

We should expect the Government, if the Bill looks to do everything possible, to hold those responsible for this problem to account. The Government must hold big industry that is responsible for this disaster to account. The full cost of the remediation must be recovered. The Minister has been vocal on the issue of recovering costs and made plenty of statements about it but we still have not seen anything done. Some large Irish construction companies are currently contributing to the UK redress schemes arising out of the issues relating to cladding at Grenfell Tower and the disaster there. The equivalent company is not being held to account in Ireland at this point.

It is very important measures do not punish the entire sector because that would punish people who have complied with all the standards. This must be about holding to account those who are responsible. That is really important if we are to have accountability built into this process.

We learned at last Thursday's meeting of the housing committee - and the Minister repeated it in his opening comments - that the Government "intends" to do something about this and there is an intention to appoint a senior counsel to look into cost recovery. Incredibly, terms of reference for this work have still not been drawn up and nobody has, as of now, been appointed. There is an urgency in this because the Statute of Limitations will kick in and prevent action being taken after a certain period. There is a ten-year window and it will start to kick in with some aspects quite soon. That tells us everything we need to know about the level of urgency the Government is showing to recovering costs from those who are responsible.

The Government has been negligent with respect to rogue quarries that are still operating. We were told in last Thursday's meeting of the housing committee by Mr. Aidan O'Connell, an experienced and qualified engineer, about such quarries. He stated:

We have experience of 12 counties where we have seen damage. As of last week, we are now on county 13. That was a substantial amount of properties to be inspecting, reviewing and so forth. One of the difficulties we are having, and I understand this is a public forum, is that the quarry owners recognise they have a problem and are suppressing some of the information and some of the damage and doing side deals with homeowners to try to suppress it within the counties. Ultimately, I believe where all these locations are will come out.

I encourage people and Deputies who have knowledge of affected quarries, because I am aware of some areas in the southern part of Ireland and on the south-east coast where there are affected properties and they probably are well aware of where that material has come from, to come forward and give that information to the National Standards Authority of Ireland or Engineers Ireland.

He continued:

I do know certain quarries that are still producing concrete blocks and material that is wholly unsatisfactory and they continue to do it knowing that material is still wholly unsatisfactory. I believe that some TDs and other public personnel do know that themselves and I would encourage them to try to use any of their authority to get it stopped.

That is an incredible statement and, to be frank, I am very disappointed the Minister did not address the matter in his opening remarks. He said he had ordered an audit of all active quarries in Donegal but what about the other quarries that we know, as of last Thursday, are operating around the country? I have been in touch, as I know others have, with the National Building Control Office about this, urging it to act. Why is the Minister not acting on this and why did he not address the question in his opening remarks? Why are quarries still operating and producing substandard material leading to crumbling houses, putting families and communities through all that stress? What is the Minister doing about this and why are we not hearing from him about action? Everybody in Ireland deserves to hear from the Minister about what is being done about these quarries, which are still operating. It is utterly unacceptable that the Minister with responsibility for this had nothing to say about it in his opening comments today. I urge him to address the question in his closing statement.

If this is not to happen again, there are four actions the Government should take as a matter of urgency. We need a national building control authority along the lines of the National Food Safety Authority of Ireland and we must make the inspection and certification of building and development properly independent to completely break the self-certification model that has been an absolute disaster. We must introduce latent defects insurance, although the Government opposed my recent amendments in legislation to do this. We need an independent regulator of the building industry rather than one run by the building industry, which is what is being done. Given the huge costs, stress and trauma caused by building defects and defective blocks, it is inexcusable that these measures have not been taken already.

I will touch on the assignment and subrogation of claims to the Minister, dealt with in section 29. This means homeowners will not be able to take legal actions if they sign up to the State's redress scheme. We know that so far, 34 High Court writs have been issued and hundreds more could be expected. Would it not be in the State's interest to allow homeowners to recover costs against third parties, especially for non-grantable losses or any of the costs of construction or remediation not covered by this scheme? It appears this section of the Bill will prevent homeowners from recovering those costs through legal action.

We need to know on what basis the State purports to inherit a plaintiff's rights to recover sums that are not covered by the grants for which third parties could otherwise be liable. I asked officials from the Department about this at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage last Thursday. We were promised an answer but I have not received one. This is one of the problems with rushing this legislation through in that we raise legitimate questions, as we are meant to do as part of the democratic process, and we do not get answers. That is a deficit in this process.

Does blocking these legal actions mean that people who are not covered under the scheme could end up taking a legal case and get financial recourse for thousands of other homeowners? Last week, representatives of the affected homeowners informed the committee that they felt this part of the legislation was designed to put the frighteners on them and stop people pursuing a claim against anyone. While there were measures in the Bill to prevent affected homeowners from taking from legal action, there are no such measures with respect to taking on those who are responsible for this disaster.

Previous speakers mentioned the option of penalty-free downsizing. This is a very good proposal, which has been put forward as a compromise by affected homeowners. Again, we have not heard a good explanation of the reason it is not being provided for. This option makes sense given the environmental benefits it would have in terms of reduced building materials and less energy to heat homes. As such, it is in line with Government policy to tackle climate change. I ask the Government to consider allowing penalty-free downsizing and flexibility. It makes eminent sense to do so.

On the damage threshold, there is a concern that this will potentially exclude and delay thousands of homeowners in pyrite-impacted counties. The reliance on visual inspections and assessment of photographs will mean some homeowners will be excluded and core testing will only apply if owners pass the damage threshold. Concerns were articulated last week that this could mean that homeowners who have understandably taken some small measures to prevent additional water egress and the damage that causes may not meet the damage threshold as a result of the very small measures they have taken.

A scientific and evidence-based approach should be taken and should rely on core testing. This a line that is worth repeating. I do not think there is anything controversial about taking that approach. Why then is that approach not being taken and why are we not relying on core testing for assessing the damage threshold?

There are a number of other issues with this Bill and I and other Deputies have submitted a large number of amendments to it. I have concerns that the revised rates and caps are not in line with forecast inflation and that the proposals on cost inflation in the Bill are inadequate. I also have concerns that the approach taken is not following the science and does not ensure all deleterious materials are assessed and the foundations are tested.

We were told last Thursday at the housing committee that the Housing Agency, for example, has not done any testing of foundations in Donegal. Why is it that the case? Why is there an aversion to taking a scientific and evidence-based approach to that? Why are we not taking an approach that would mean that no defective concrete block homeowner is left behind?

I am concerned that the approval process is complex and has so many stages that it will not be user-friendly. We have to think of this in terms of the stress and trauma that homeowners have already gone through. Making those processes more difficult for them does not help.

There are also concerns about the power and discretion being placed in the hands of the Minister in setting regulations without scrutiny. There are concerns that the 18-month time limit may cause issues with accessing contractors and builders, especially in areas of high demand.

It is very important that we get this legislation right. Rushing it does not help at all in that regard. There must be accountability and recovery of costs from those who are responsible. The lack of action on that to date is utterly unforgivable. The rogue quarries producing substandard materials which are damaging homes and lives to this day need to be shut down and dealt with. It is completely unacceptable that the Government is not acting on that. There needs to be action now to ensure the construction sector is independently and robustly regulated to ensure issues like this never arise again. The passage through the Houses of the Regulation of Providers of Building Works and Building Control (Amendment) Bill 2022 means the sector will not be independently regulated but will regulate itself. It is incredible, after everything that has happened in this country, that the Government would do that.

I agree with the comments of Deputy Nash on the proposal from the Construction Defects Alliance. We need to see action on that in this year’s budget and I hope that the Minister will address the matter in his concluding remarks.

I reiterate that the House could give this Bill the justice and scrutiny it deserves and the time needed for the amendments if one person, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, were to facilitate and agree to that. Nobody else has objected to the suggestion.

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