Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In July, I visited the home of Sharon Moss in Letterkenny, along with my colleagues, Deputies Mac Lochlainn and Doherty. Sharon's home is one of the worst defective block homes I have been in. The walls are crumbling and half of the house cannot be occupied. One would have to be there to experience the smell of damp and rot throughout the house. One would not allow a rat to live in a property like it. Sharon has applied for the defective blocks scheme. She is one of the 500 or so applications from Donegal, Mayo and other counties that are stuck. The problem is that she is facing into a very bleak winter, living in a property that was not fit for human habitation in the summer months. In the winter months, it is an enormous problem. While the Department is working on the new regulations for the enhanced scheme, which we will deal with when it comes forward, right now families desperately need emergency intervention in Donegal, Mayo, Clare, Tipperary, Sligo and elsewhere. While I know it is not the Minister of State's Department, I implore him to listen to the three Deputies here, and go back to the line Minister responsible and urge him to get local authorities and the Housing Agency involved in order to provide some temporary relief for these families while they are waiting for the long promised and overdue enhanced scheme.

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