Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In July 2011, I witnessed the Minister of State's then party leader and Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, make a famous speech about the approach of the Vatican to victims of abuse. He said: "... the Vatican's reaction was to parse and analyse it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer." That was a famous speech. The problem has been that the approach of too many people who worked for Government and who were elected to be in government over the years who were dealing with the victims of this disaster, which has worked its way down the west coast of Ireland, has been exactly the same. It has been cold and callous, has always been about limiting the exposure of the State and penny-pinching but has ended up costing us a fortune because of the mistakes those involved have made again and again.

That was a powerful contribution, incidentally, by Deputy Alan Farrell just now. We are looking for all of the victims of State regulation to be treated exactly the same across this State, whether it is the people who live in apartments with defects in Dublin, the victims of the pyrite disaster in Dublin and north Leinster, the people on the west coast or those in the counties we heard about, such as Wexford, for example, where problems are emerging. We want them all to receive 100% support, and not the gimlet eye again and again. They want redress and to rebuild their homes. That is all they are asking for. They were utterly failed by the State, its building controls, the regulations, the lack of oversight, the Celtic tiger, the greed and the closeness of those who were greedy to people who have sat in this Chamber over the years. We owe it to any homeowners and families who are the victims of this disaster and injustice to get them 100% redress. That is the starting point in all of these matters. If one starts from that point, one gets to justice. If one does not, one gets injustice again and again.

IS 465 is the basis for the spending billions of euros of taxpayers' money. IS 465 does not instruct us to test for pyrrhotite or to test the foundations of people's homes. How can that be? When the evidence the committee produced last Thursday is looked at, there is no answer to that question. How can that be the case? In Donegal alone, 77 properties were tested and 66 had pyrrhotite. Some 61 of those had appreciable amounts of pyrrhotite. Pyrrhotite is, in fact, the chief offender here. More tests have been done by Petrolab in Britain.

Pyrrhotite is the chief offender, yet we are not testing or basing the expenditure of billions of euro of taxpayers' money on that. It is not a deciding factor. We are not testing the foundations to make sure they are safe. We are cruelly insisting that people rebuild their homes on foundations that have not been tested. The Government talks about the use of taxpayers' money. It is reckless behaviour again and again because it is always about the gimlet eye. It is always about not starting from the position of 100% redress or from a position of justice to remedy what is a profound injustice and disaster for so many people.

The IS 465 standard is being reviewed. It is clear from the science that is emerging that there needs to be a complete transformation in a renewed standard. That has to happen in tandem with this legislation and this new scheme. How can the Government ask people to trust a system that has been shown by science, by laboratories and by internationally respected experts to be nonsense? The Government is going to risk billions of euro of taxpayers' money on a discredited standard that was not based on any discernible level of testing at the time. That was a mistake.

The people who are working on that standard need to bring in new ideas and international best practice. They need to talk to PetraLab, Dr. Andreas Leemann and other international experts in these fields in the United States and Britain. They need to have the humility to know that the standard we are working with right now is not up to specification. It is not worth risking billions of euro of people's money on.

We cruelly ask people to keep their foundations. There is a big suspicion that I share, which is about - I will say it again - the gimlet eye. If a person replaces the foundations and goes for a full rebuild, it must be rebuilt to modern building standards. God forbid the Government would allow people, when we talk about retrofitting and climate change, to put in triple glazing and modern energy-efficient systems when they rebuild their homes. Is it too much to ask that we would allow them to do that? Not even that can be allowed to happen. We want people to use the same windows and doors they already had and build homes on old foundations that have not been tested. This is the recklessness and mean-spiritedness that keeps breaking people’s hearts and it has to stop.

I will speak about penalty-free downsizing. How on earth can the Government stop somebody who is willing to downsize their home from doing so? It has said it will not give people 100% redress or make sure the costings are immediately updated when the scheme is launched. It has said it cannot give that commitment just now, although that should have been done already. Not only will the Government not do that but it will also not allow people to downsize their houses penalty-free - the cruelty of it. People have been traumatised by years of this mental anguish and turmoil. Lives have been destroyed. The Government wants them to build on foundations that have not been tested. It wants them to use windows and doors that are old. It will give them a financial penalty if they choose to downsize. For God's sake, get this right this time. Do not make the mistakes - the gimlet eye - that led to the so-called 90:10 scheme, a cruel scheme that has now been discredited by all. We have to get it right this time.

The final issue I will focus on is the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland costing. The Government came in again. I use the word “again” because I am speaking to the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, about the words of his former party leader and former Taoiseach. The gimlet eye comes into the way the Government approaches the costings with a sliding scale. Where the hell did the sliding scale come from? They were looking for a big day but - imagine the cruelty when people had their hopes raised - all of a sudden the sliding scale was slipped in. Then, under huge pressure from homeowners across the country, the Government went back and looked at the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland and said it would not give a commitment just yet. Maybe it will give a commitment next week that when this scheme is up and running, it will be based on real costs in the real world whereby the amount per square foot or per square metre is actually what people would have to pay in the real world. Will the Minister of State at least give that commitment when the scheme is up and running? That is the appeal.

This is my final contribution. A chartered engineer gave testimony before a committee last week that there are quarries still producing defective products and ruining people's lives. How are we in such a situation, after all these years? It is still being allowed to happen. It is still going on in this country. People are still manufacturing blocks that are destroying people's lives. There is still not legislation to bring this to an end. Not one quarry has been closed in this country despite people’s lives being destroyed. The answer was that not one quarry was closed down.

I will wrap up with this. I started with the speech by the former Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, that captured people's imagination about closing an ugly chapter in our history. Please stop using the gimlet eye. Stop the cold-heartedness. Start from the position of natural justice, which means full redress for every family, no matter where they live in this country, who have been failed by the past. Allow them to rebuild their lives. Get it right this time. Base it on science, fairness and justice. If the Government does that, the people can go home and will not have to keep protesting or sitting in the Public Gallery anymore.

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