Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim céad míle fáilte roimh na daoine sa Ghailearaí. I welcome those in the Gallery, na daoine óga agus na clanna go léir. This is heart-rending. These people came to the convention centre last year. They came to the front of the Dáil in the most dignified and profoundly professional manner. Their homes are falling down around them. There is talk of following the science. We heard a lot about science during Covid and much of that science was wrong too. Why will the Government not follow the science here? It is trying to bring us nose first into this and dip our noses into the science. This is an abject failure by the Minister and Department officials. They refuse to listen to anyone else who knows better. These people are dictating. They are unchallenged and are getting away with it. Anybody who has ever stood on a building site, and I must declare I am a plant contractor myself, knows the foundation is the most important part of any building, organisation or anything else. Leaving the foundations out of the scheme is pure mockery. There are a couple of layers of blocks that raise up the subfloors and walls and they are filled up with screed and concrete. How could the Government leave out the foundations? They will crack and crumble and crack every bit of the house. That would happen even if there was no mica or pyrite, if there were bad foundations. That has happened in many places where there poor foundations without enough steel or on bad ground. Why will the officials in the Department not take off their shoes and go out and see the houses?

This issue has been around for so long and the way this Bill is being rushed through in the final days before the summer recess is despicable. The Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage has offered to deal with the amendments but the Government will not allow it to. I salute Deputy O'Donoghue, who is on that committee and is willing to give his time, along with Deputy Ó Broin and others, to deal with it. It is being rushed through on shaky foundations. The Government has been warned time and again that it is on shaky ground. It has no empathy, sorrow, sympathy or respect for the ordinary people. Thank God we do not get them here, but we see houses being wrecked by earthquakes and things like that, or even in the war that is going on now. That is happening incrementally by the minute, hourly and daily in people's homes. These people were brave enough to put their hands in their pockets. They got up early in the mornings to go out to work to get a mortgage and build their own houses. Many of them built them themselves and many got contractors.

All the while the Government is turning its eyes away from the real problem, which is the big conglomerates that supplied the concrete. To think this scheme might go ahead - it probably will go ahead - and the concrete, aggregate and blocks could come from the same sandpits or rock pits they came from already beggars belief. That shows one thing. It is nothing personal to the Minister or the Minister of State. It shows this Government, and successive Governments, is and have been beholden to big business. I have attended CRH's AGMs in fancy hotels here in Dublin to fight for people who were grievously wronged by that company in the past. This has gone on all over the world, with challenges, court cases and settlements. The Government is happy to use these quarries and those belonging to some more friends of Fianna Fáil. They are untouchable. They shall not be named. You cannot go near them because they are the Government's friends. Those days are gone. The people of Donegal, Mayo, Limerick and many other counties must be looked after.

We have tabled a number of amendments, which I am sure we will not get time to move or discuss. We want to extend the scheme to Tipperary as well. The Bunratty quarry is only over the border from us in Tipperary. I collected roof tiles from there myself when I was putting an extension on my house. What is the Government at? The mockery is over. The shenanigans are over and should be over. The Government needs to get real, get down and dirty and get the proper foundations. If you only put a stone upon a stone there will be so much done but if you build a castle on bad foundations, you might as well have a sandcastle because when the first bit of rain comes, it will melt. I have met families outside the gate here, taobh amuigh den gheata, who are afraid of yellow and orange weather warnings in case the house collapses around them. Imagine living in that fear. The walls are crumbling. They showed me the aggregate in plastic bags. That morning it was in solid knobs but it had burst by the time they came here. A crusher would not crush it that well, yet the quarries are exempted. The big businesses are gone again. It goes back to PMPA and the insurance bailout, the meat conglomerates and the Goodman empire - bailed out again. We are not allowed speak about it. We have to close or eyes and not even look at the quarries. We have to keep away from them in case we might have to pay back any of the bankrolling they did for the political parties. People are more important.

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