Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. It is one I am very familiar with in my constituency as well, where a large number of apartments have apartment defects. People have been sent bills, sometimes for €10,000 and sometimes for as much as €60,000 per apartment, to carry out necessary repairs. The inevitable happens. Some people can afford to pay, some cannot afford to pay and some people will not pay. Therefore, the money cannot be raised and the work cannot be carried out, so people are left in a terrible limbo where they are unable to sell the apartment and they are worried about whether it is even safe for them to continue to live there.

The Government responded to the issues that arose with pyrite and it has responded with the new mica scheme for Donegal and other counties. I believe we will need a response to assist people who are facing large bills as a result of defects in apartments. I cannot give any commitments at this stage, but as the Deputy mentioned, a working group on this was established by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy O'Brien. A report is due. I have not seen the report but I believe it is imminent or close to being completed. Once we have that report we will be able to give consideration to it. However, the basic principle applies that there will have to be Government assistance for people who, through no fault of their own, purchased apartments that are in buildings where there are defects and those defects have to be repaired.

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