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

I will simplify it for the Minister. When I was a child I had child-size shoes. That was to do with my size and my weight load. Now I am a big boy and I have adult shoes. I have big foundations so I need big shoes. When you consider a house built in the 1980s and 1990s and the foundation structure that was put in at the time, it was based on the roof structure, which was lighter timber than that used today. This means that today, with heavier timbers and a heavier roof structure, if you have a trussed roof you do not need central support but if you have a cut roof then you need central support. The Bill would mean heavier timbers and heavier weight structures going down onto a foundation that was designed many years ago to take a lighter house. Today, you cannot build that lighter house because regulations have changed. Previously, you had 7 inch by 2 inch beams on the first floor, but now you have 9 inch by 2 inch, at a minimum, with a maximum of 4 m in width. Years ago, they were allowed to go to a width of 5.5 m. Now the regulations state that you cannot go wider than 4 m. This means that extra timber is required, resulting in extra weight on the foundations. This extra weight is proposed to be on top of foundations that were built in the 1980s. I put it to the Minister that he must stop wasting money with the NSAI. All foundations are different. Homeowners with affected foundations must be given the option of taking them out and putting them back in. That is all we are asking. It is common sense and it will save money. Every foundation in the country is different, the same way that every person in this country is different. People have different weights so they get proper shoes to carry their weight. The Minister's proposals do not make sense. We need to stop wasting time and stop wasting money. We must put foundations into the redress scheme now and stop going around in circles by wasting money on engineers' fees to look at different foundations. Every house is different, the regulations are different and the weight loads are different. Let us have a bit of common sense.

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