Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Across the country, hundreds of thousands of people are living in homes affected by defects, whether these have been caused by mica, pyrite, fire safety deficiencies or other blatant defects. Hundreds of thousands of people have been impacted. Given the campaigning and the pressure from below, it is clear that the Government has been forced to concede redress schemes, such as the one for people affected by mica defects. It is still an inadequate redress scheme. The top line refers to 100%, but, in reality, in the small print, it is something like 80% redress. The families affected by mica defects are not giving up on this and they are going to continue to fight. The question of another major redress scheme, worth between €1.5 billion and, more likely, the higher end of €2.5 billion for apartment and duplex defects, is going to come on the agenda.

The obvious question now is: who is going to pay for these?

The Government's answer is that ordinary people will pay and it will not make those who are responsible pay. On the one hand, new homeowners will pay this levy, and on the other, because the levy by itself is completely inadequate, the public in general will pay in terms of public funding, extra taxation, etc.

There is a continuous feature from the origin of this problem to the solution of how we deal with it and how we pay for it, which is the absolute consistent position of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to represent developers and builders. That is who they represent. That is whose interests they have represented in this all the way along. We have hundreds of thousands of people in this crisis because we have the builders' parties in power.

I will go back all the way to 29 November 1989. My attention was drawn to it. It is referenced in Deputy Ó Broin's book, Defects. It is a very revealing debate on the Building Control Bill 1984. What it reveals is that all of this was warned about. All those decades ago, it was all warned about. The then Fianna Fáil-led Government knew about it, shrugged its shoulders and said that there would be no problem with the builders. In the debate, the former Deputy, Mr. Eamon Gilmore, then spokesperson for the Workers' Party, stated:

It is quite clear that the intention in this section of the Bill is to introduce a system of self certification which will be the primary instrument used to give effect to building control. It is a little misleading to suggest that the provision for self certification is some kind of an adjunct to the general provisions of the Bill and which can be exercised from time to time. It has been made crystal clear - this is my reading of the debate which took place before the adjournment of the Dáil - that the central method by which it is intended building control will be exercised under this Bill is through the system of self certification. In other words, a competent professional or whoever has designed a house, is responsible for the building of it and so on, would also be the person who would be able to say "this building is fine". That principle is not acceptable in commercial life. If it was accepted in commercial life, why do building societies, when they are approving a loan for someone ..., decide they will not automatically accept the word of the professional representing the people ...

The principle being enshrined in this section is very dangerous. It will expose people who are buying homes to buying products which are sub-standard against which they will have no comeback. Under a later section of this Bill once a local authority take in a certificate of compliance and file it away one cannot take any action against them. These people will have no worth-while come-back if a certificate of compliance does not properly ensure that a building meets the required standards.

All of what has come to transpire was warned and predicted. The then Minister for the Environment, Mr. Pádraig Flynn of Fianna Fáil, stated, "I cannot for the life of me understand the Deputy's preoccupation with rogue builders, certifiers and architects." Mr. Gilmore responded, "I come across a lot of them." Mr. Flynn stated, "If Deputy Gilmore buys a building without having put in place some checks ... then he is the one who is being negligent in protecting his own investment." The then Government, a Fianna Fáil Government, was warned at the time about all of this, about everything that would transpire as a consequence and they said that it was people's fault even though it is not people's fault. How could they possibly have known? If one bought a house with mica, one could not possibly have known. If one bought a house with fire defects, one could not possibly have known. If one bought a house with pyrite, one could not possibly have known. What is consistent from 1989 to now is representing the interests of the builders and the developers, and that is what is happening here.

The 10% defective concrete products levy should be scrapped because it is clear that the cost will simply be passed on to ordinary people and make already unaffordable housing even more expensive. It has been referenced how the SCSI has forecast that the levy could add €3,000 to €4,000 to the costs of an average three-bedroom semi-detached house.

It is a scheme that has been carefully designed to place no financial burden on developers and builders but, effectively, merely makes them collectors of a levy on ordinary people in need of a home. It is yet another demonstration we have had over all these decades of the toxic relationship between developers and builders on the one hand and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, as their political parties, on the other.

We need to pay for this. That is agreed. The Minister was on television last night asking to be shown a way that this levy will not be passed on and I agree that this levy will be passed on. The way a levy that cannot be passed on should be designed is to go after the profits of the developers and construction industry, the profits of the banking sector, etc. They should be hit at the point of profit. Many of them are highly profitable and we need a levy on their large profits. In Britain, post Grenfell, such a levy has been introduced. It is entirely possible to do it here if the political will exists and if the builders and developers are not protected.

I do not accept that we cannot go after those who are directly responsible for, or guilty of the consequences of, the defects that we are seeing now. With regard to the apartment and duplex defects, some of the companies still exist. In many other cases, the same people still exist. They are still building apartments and duplexes but they have simply reinvented themselves. The same people who made significant profits are still active in the industry. Some of them are still getting new public contracts. We should go after them.

I will finish by making the point about the report on the defective apartments and duplexes. It is now more than two months since the Government received the report from the working group that examined defects in housing. That report is clear about the significant extent of defects, primarily fire defects, in apartments and duplexes. If people are living in an apartment or a duplex built between 1991 and 2013, the chances are they are affected. The chances are they will be faced, though they do not know it yet, with a bill on average of €25,000. More likely, in many cases, it will be significantly higher than that. The working group estimates that of apartments and duplexes constructed between 1991 and 2013, the number that may be affected by one or more defect, that is, fire safety, structural safety or water ingress defects, is likely to range between 50% and 80%, which equates to between 62,500 and 100,000 apartments or duplexes. That is one-in-20 homes in the State. Effectively, it is 5%. It is an immense issue that most people who are affected by it do not know that they are affected yet. The then Minister, Mr. Flynn, said at the time that it would be the purchaser's fault but this is absolutely not people's fault. They did everything they were supposed to do when their homes were built and when they bought them and they are faced with substantial bills to make their homes safe.

On budget day last week, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage brought a memorandum to Cabinet on the issue of defective apartments, but all he did was to announce the establishment of a new group to look into the report from the previous group and to report back before the end of the year. We do not need months more of deliberation, etc. We have the report of the working group. It is clear on the extent of the problem. It also includes, as one of the possible solutions, the only solution that will work, in my opinion, which is 100% redress.

We know what the issue is. We know what the solution is. We cannot expect apartment and duplex owners to simply wait more months as this is kicked down the road before some scheme is put in place that then takes months or years to be implemented. The Government should move on it now. It should have included redress in last week's budget and it should move on it immediately.

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