Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are talking about the possibility of upwards of 100,000 homes with building defects. Some of my colleagues have already spoken about the human impact and we have to think of that. I am sure the people in the Visitors Gallery can tell the Minister particular stories. It has already been said in the House how people did absolutely nothing wrong. They went out and bought homes, they thought they were doing the right thing, they got their mortgages and they did everything correctly and then, because of the sins of others, they were left in a shameful situation.

We know a huge number of people have already been put under considerable pressure in regard to delivering their own solutions because it has been forced on them in regard to fire regulations or insurance. That is why we need a proper scheme and Deputy Ó Broin has done a considerable amount of work in this regard. We know the Safe as Houses? report is, to a degree, accepted by the Government and that there needs to be a redress scheme, and we know the working group was set up in 2021. What we really need to see is delivery because, in fairness, these people have waited far too long. We could have had this debate at any time in the last number of years and we would still be saying the same thing. It is far too long.

It happened because of the sins of others. As has been said by almost everyone who spoke, and I imagine it will be repeated almost ad nauseam, the fact is there was little or no regulation. The only place that we can leave that responsibility is with the Government. We need to ensure that we deliver for these people who have done absolutely nothing wrong. What is the alternative? The alternative at one stage, as proposed by the Government in 2016 – I accept it was not the current Minister’s Government - was that these people were personally responsible for this. I commend a significant amount of work done by politicians, but also by residents and by the Construction Defects Alliance, who pushed back in that regard, so we are at least having the correct conversation. The correct conversation is a scheme based on the pyrite resolution scheme and it needs to have 100% redress from end to end.

Deputy Mac Lochlainn and others spoke in regard to the difficulties that exist concerning the defective blocks scheme. That is a case where the Government almost went the journey that was necessary but failed at the final hurdle. We need to ensure that does not happen again. We know that speed is of the essence. Once again, we are in this Chamber and we are talking about failures. We can talk in very general terms about failures but they are not very general terms for the people in the Visitors Gallery, who have been impacted and who are living on a day-by-day basis with houses and homes that are not safe or fit for purpose due to, I repeat, mistakes that others made and that were not their responsibility.

Let us be clear because we have all said it many times before: what people expect of a Government is that it is there to have their back and to ensure that the correct regulations are in play. We need to ensure we can deliver for people so they are safe in the sense that they can go out and buy houses and that all of the necessary due diligence and regulation has been done, and if there are people who have failed to comply with the necessary rules, they are brought to task. Not only do we need this resolution scheme in place, we also need to make sure we root out problems and ensure we have the necessary regulation so this never happens again. It is beyond time. We need to deliver now for these people.

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