Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is not two years ago. This is a new scheme that was introduced, as the Deputy has just said, via legislation in this House. It is a new scheme because homeowners and representative groups did not believe the previous scheme, which was welcomed by the Deputies in the House at the time, went far enough. We met residents and representative groups and dramatically improved the scheme with regard to issues around giving financial assistance for all of the pre-costs such as engineering costs and dealing with the rental issue.

I met the representative body well over a year ago and we dealt with all of those issues and that should be acknowledged. There is no point in creating this sort of narrative that the Government is out to get people or undermine them. The Deputy used a terrible phrase when he said the Government was blaming homeowners for the levy. That is a shocking thing to say because it is not what Government is doing. The Deputy should know that because the Government has, at this stage, signed off on approximately €2.8 billion for the mica scheme. It has been signed off and provided for now in the finances. That is not rhetoric. It is financial provision.

The issue is delivery and getting the houses that need urgent remediation or demolition and reconstruction done. The regulations and guidance documents are being worked on by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in consultation with the relevant stakeholders, because people want to be involved all along the way in how this scheme will be shaped, designed and progressed. It cannot be a case of the Department issuing edicts on this and we have further responses that delay it even further. The ambition is to roll out the new scheme before the end of this year or, at worst, in early 2023.

I continue to put pressure on to see whether we can get this done as quickly as we can while involving all stakeholders because, as far as I am concerned, the houses that are most damaged should be done very quickly. We will get a sense of timelines over the next years. Much depends on the acuity of the situation. Some houses are in a very bad way. We want those houses replaced. There is nothing I and the entire Government want to see more than houses being demolished and built, where that is required. I understand there are approximately 300 in that bracket at the moment, with a further 300 coming on-stream. It is doable.

The concrete levy was basically that the Government had decided on expenditure of approximately between €4.5 billion and potentially €6 billion into the future involving pyrite, mica and apartment defects, just like the insurance levy of yesteryear when issues arose with the insurance industry. The mechanism has been used before but it also shows that we have revenue streams to match very significant Government expenditure. That is the only agenda there which, in the light of what is going on globally with the volatility of markets and all that, has a ring of credibility to it.

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