Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I reiterate my complete support for the statement from homeowners’ representatives read into the record today by Deputy Ó Broin. It is a sad indictment of us in this political system and of the Government that it has come to this. Ordinary people who have invested so much in this process and in making the scheme work have had to put that statement on the record to show how the Government has ignored them. That is sad. That echoes in my mind as I speak here. I think what we are doing today is a waste of time. The deadline for amendments has passed. The Minister of State is not listening to us. He is sitting there uncomfortably. I am sure there are many other things he would rather do. This makes no difference because he will not take our issues on board or do anything. I am disgusted by what the Minister fervently presented to us today as the panacea to the problems faced by my constituents in Donegal and other affected counties to the problem of defective blocks in their homes.

It clearly is not. In his opening contribution, the Minister said: "We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good and we need to get a practical scheme moving." It would make you sick. The reality of the situation is with this scheme the Minister is letting inadequate be the enemy of the good.

I am disgusted at the way the Bill confirms that, despite what the Taoiseach has presented in the House, as "extensive consultations with homeowners", their concerns have not been addressed and not been listened to. The Minister and his officials sat in meetings with people for the past six months, pretended to listen to them, and then ignored them. It is obvious that all of us have been completely ignored. There is no point in claiming that just hearing them is good enough, because in ignoring them, the Minister and Government are making a judgment on what they think of the people’s concerns. They are dismissing them, and today’s Bill does that over and over again. The words of the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine earlier saying he recognises homeowners' work on this, ring increasingly hollow. It is really sad and it is sickening.

I call on Government-backing Deputies from the affected counties to finally be honest and straight with the people and admit they do not care that the party will come before the people, as they always intended. This is what is really happening here. There is also disgust at the process that has been followed to avoid proper legislative scrutiny and to minimise the opportunity for media scrutiny. That is the only reasonable conclusion I can come to for all this rush after months of delay from the Government. Let me be clear, however, that there is no surprise here. From the very start, I have said it honestly to the homeowners in Donegal that I did not believe the Government politicians were being genuine with them when they stood on platforms and promised they would resign if the Bill did not provide 100% redress. I told them that I did not believe the Minister or the Department had any intention of providing 100% redress, and, sadly, this has been shown today. I had hoped that I would be wrong and that the process would show that we can be wrong but it does not happen in this political system.

It is not just about the content of the Bill presented here; it is also about the fact that the Government is hell bent on ramming it through Committee and Remaining Stages in two hours next week. It means this debate is a total farce. It has no point in terms of the legislative principles of this House, as the deadline for the submission of amendments had passed prior to the start of the debate. What will the Minister take away from the debate? Absolutely nothing.

I and others have worked tirelessly over the past week to draft amendments, with well in excess of 150 in total submitted for this morning's deadline. They were drafted to address the concerns of the homeowners and deal with obvious flaws in the Bill as presented. It was then confirmed to me earlier today by the Bills Office that no Government amendments were submitted at all. We now know the Minister had already decided to change nothing to address the concerns of people and residents. Such contempt for the parliamentary process is hard to take for those of us who sit in this Chamber but it is insignificant when compared to the clear message the Minister and the Minister of State are sending to those watching in the Public Gallery, my constituents in Donegal and people in other counties who are watching this in the hope that there can be a better outcome for them. As I said earlier, Deputies are used to this and we expect it, but sadly it has now been shown for the people outside the House what it actually means. At the moment they are left with the false hope of the Opposition amendments to cling to. Again, I was very clear to those I spoke to that many of our amendments will be ruled out of order as being a cost on the State. Amendments of the kind needed to fix this Bill can only be brought forward by a Member of the Government. They are not going to do it, and the Minister of State knows this. Once again, I believe he should drop the charade and be honest with people. The likes of promises of a review by a senior counsel into the defective blocks saga will butter few parsnips with people in Donegal. We are still waiting on the Mulcahy report to be published by the Government. It was commissioned in 2015 and has been on the ministerial desk for the past five years. The Minister of State, Deputy Burke, knows where I think he should stick his senior counsel review. It will be just more of the same thing and will not mean anything at all.

I will be brief regarding the Bill because I know I am wasting my breath. It is rule by regulation and it is not good enough. Could the Minister of State not see the return of the sliding scale through regulation? What is to stop the Minister of State? Is it his solemn promise? I propose to mandate the inclusion of homeowners' representatives, their engineers and experts in geology and materials science, in the formulation of all regulations. They should follow the science, not the whim of officials with an eye on the purse, and not aggregate the remediation and ancillary grants. It is just unfair.

The Bill does not deal with multiple occupancy dwellings. Does the Minister of State not realise that these buildings are crumbling also and that families live in them too? If a homeowner gets remediation for only one house that he or she owns, then tenants in their other homes will be forced to live in buildings that will crumble in the future. I would seek to drop the limit of one rental property and revise the cut-off date for registration of tenancies. An opportunity for tenancies to be legitimised with the RTB must be given. This is not about landlords getting multiple grants; this is about the families who live in these properties and pay rent. It is their principal private residence, whether they own it or not.

I would also seek to extend the scheme State-wide now. In reality, this is where it will end up. There is no way the defective blocks saga is confined to counties Donegal, Mayo, Clare and Leitrim. We are aware that Sligo is affected, as are numerous other counties. The scheme must be nationwide. Why is it not nationwide? It must be some attempt by the Minister's officials to make it look as though they control costs by restricting the counties it will operate in. A person living in an affected building that is over the county boundary will have to wait years and campaign to be included while their house is collapsing around them. The scheme must include all buildings such as schools, nursing homes, hotels, shops, factory buildings and farm sheds, otherwise economic life and people’s jobs will never get back to normal.

The Bill should mandate the testing for all known iron sulphides, mandate the testing of foundations, and mandate the revision of IS 465 as the earliest cut-off date for inclusion, not January 2020. The Minister should also set realistic cut-off dates. Not many people in Inishowen are going to be able to get a builder within a year and a half when many householders are looking for builders at the same time to be included in the scheme.

The grant cut for downsizing must also be dropped. It is mean-minded and mean-spirited, as was said earlier. The base rate should be index linked from the date of the Government's big announcement back in November if the Government is genuine about this scheme meeting the homeowners' actual costs. We also call to drop the refund of third-party compensation. That is just a sickening inclusion. I would also seek the dropping of the assignment and subrogation of claims, which is another sickening inclusion, obviously written by departmental mandarins who just want to save money. The threat of fees for appeals, and the offences and penalties, must also be dropped. I ask the Government to not infantilise and criminalise the homeowners.

Only last week we heard the Taoiseach pontificate and attempt to talk down to Opposition Members saying, stating: "Since I was elected to this House, [I have] seen it primarily as a legislative assembly." I will never understand how he manages to get such statements out of his mouth even as we partake in this farce today. It takes some neck but I suppose a hard neck is what one gets having been in here for years.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister of State to address in his closing remarks - not that he will address them but I will ask them anyway. Does he intend to consider any of the Opposition amendments, seeing as the Government failed to table any? Is the Minister of State planning to vote them all down? Will he sit down with Opposition spokespersons and homeowners on Monday, for one last time, to go through the amendments and decide what the Government will accept? Will he give either of those commitments, for whatever that is worth? I do not think so. I have little faith left in the Government and less this week than last, and it was a low bar at that stage. This is a mean-spirited thing being done here today with this legislation. It is being dressed up as a €2.3 billion scheme. It will actually probably end up being a €6 billion scheme because the scheme will have to come back for a third attempt at legislation to sort this out. It will cost a hell of a lot more at that stage because the Government has arsed about and made sure that people are not listened to. This is a sad reflection of the whole thing.

See this speech in context