Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to add my support and that of my party to this amendment. I am minded that we who are privileged to be elected to this House are messengers of the people. This is not our amendment. This is not my amendment, and while my name and those of Deputies Ó Broin, Conway-Walsh, Mac Lochlainn, along with other colleagues are on it, this is the people's amendment. These 80 amendments come from the people. Not only do they come from the people, they come from the people who are most affected as a result of this. They come from the people who have campaigned for this for more than ten years and who, time and again, have shown that the schemes and solutions being put forward by the Department, by the officials and by the Minister are flawed or defective, just as are the concrete blocks that make up their homes. This is the reality. Even though tonight the Minister and the Government lost its numerical majority, in reality this Government had lost the support of the people over a long period of time. Change is happening, about which I have no doubt, and especially given the way the Government is ramming this Bill through. As was said in a statement that was read into the record by Deputy Ó Broin, these families and this campaign will go on. Change will happen. The Government may be able to whip people into it by getting Green Party supporters and the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Party supporters to ram this through tonight, but change is happening. These 80 amendments will be given effect because people will not give up until they get this right. This amendment makes sense.

There is no-one in this House who would use the money in his or her pocket to build a house where there was a suspicion that the foundations it was being built on were defective, and especially foundations that were created with the same aggregate material that went into the blocks that were proven to be defective. People could see with their own eyes the cracks in the walls. They could feel with their own fingers the blocks crumbling in their own hands. The Minister would not do it. I would not do it. We should not be asking the homeowners of Donegal, Mayo, Sligo, Limerick or anywhere else to do it. This amendment makes sense. The Minister's legislation is defective. The Minister needs to see sense and do the right thing. The Minister needs to make sure that foundations are included in the redress. I will make other points later on, but we need to get to voting on some of these amendments.

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