Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I welcome the residents who are here this evening for this important debate and, indeed, the representatives of the Construction Defects Alliance and the Apartment Owners Network. I welcome the opportunity to debate this. It is important and I am not opposing the motion. There are elements within it that I do not agree with, specifically around the area of the pyrite resolution board, which Deputy Ó Broin and I debated last week.

We need bespoke legislation to underpin this scheme. We cannot fit a square peg in a round hole. The scheme will be with us for many years, unfortunately. Obviously, I will be seeking the co-operation and support of Members opposite when we bring forward that legislation but it is also about what we do in the interim.

To take it back a step, thousands of residents in Dublin Fingal, the area I represent, have been affected by issues such as this - by construction defects or fire defects. I have worked and campaigned on this since the first day I came into the Dáil back in 2007. When Fianna Fáil was in opposition and I was its spokesperson on housing, I called for a scheme to be put in place and for us to work together to help residents not just to put their homes back together, but to put their lives back together. That is why, in the programme for Government negotiations, we sought and received a firm and clear commitment that this nettle of construction defects will be grasped and dealt with once and for all.

We established the working group, which I commend on its work. There is an element of the motion that is probably about political point-scoring but that is fine; I understand it from the position of the Opposition. No one sat on their hands on this issue. We established the working group, made up of residents and other stakeholders, and it did really important work. It set its own terms of reference. Given the importance of its work, I did not pressure it into finishing the report sooner or speeding it up. Some 28,000 homes participated in the survey. For the first time, we have a proper handle on the type of defects, their scale and scope, and the breakdown within that. That was a very important piece of work. I received in the report in July, read it and looked at the recommendations in detail, and then brought it to the Cabinet on 27 September. The report found what many of us present know to be the case - that fire defects are the most prevalent of the defects. It is estimated that between 40% and 70% of the properties are affected by fire defects. Water ingress affected between 20% and 50%, while structural defects, though still very important, affected somewhat fewer, at between 5% and 25%. We now have a handle on the average cost, although some residents are being presented with bills well in excess of that amount. The average cost is approximately €25,000 per unit, which means a potential cost to the Exchequer of between €1.5 billion and €2.5 billion.

I am acutely aware that many residents have already remediated their homes. Approximately 12% to 14% of the properties have been fixed and made safe and approximately 34% of other affected properties are either in the process of being fixed or are planning for that to be done.

There are many elements within this and we need the scheme that is set up to be robust. I have engaged the Housing Agency, which I see playing a central role in the establishment of a scheme. It is already working on the implementation of the recommendations that have been presented. I wish to inform residents, their representatives and the Deputies who are present - this is important - that I intend to bring a further memorandum, setting out the recommendations I will make in that regard, to the Government in advance of the recess. I assure the residents that the Government will help. We will help them to get their homes and lives back together, but we need a robust scheme and it will take a bit of time to bring the legislation forward.

In the meantime, however, as we discussed in the House last week, there will be interim measures we can take, subject to approval, and we should take them. The hundreds, if not thousands, of people right across the country whom I have met in respect of construction defects deserve that response and help from the Government, and they will get it. I assure them of that.

There are other elements within this. It is not just a question of how we structure the scheme; it is about how it will be rolled out and how we categorise the different defects within it, such as in the case of the different apartment blocks and estates that are affected. We will do so using the principle of remediating the worst first. We will then have to deal with the issue of certification. We will need to ensure that when work is done, it is properly certified so that homes can be insured and brought back to their value and, should a homeowner so wish, be resold.

We then have to consider the scope of the scheme. Should it just cover principal private residences? I do not believe so. We should employ the same approach we took with the defective concrete block scheme, under which applicants were permitted to apply to the scheme in respect of an additional property registered with the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB. I am acutely aware that many social homes, such as homes owned by approved housing bodies, also need to be remediated.

As regards the scale of this issue, there are probably up to 100,000 homes that will need to be remediated to varying degrees. The idea that we should just rush forward with some type of sticking plaster approach to this is not one I share. We have to do this in a deliberate and structured fashion that will be robust. This scheme will probably be in place for approximately ten years. That is my estimation of how long it will take to bring these homes and apartments back to where they ought to have been when the residents bought them. The residents have found themselves in this situation through no fault of their own. I agree with the Deputies in that regard.As housing Minister, I have engaged regularly with residents on an individual basis as well as with the Construction Defects Alliance directly and the Apartment Owner Network as recently as this evening. They have been very important to this process and ensuring we move it onwards, get an understanding of the issues and, most important, work towards the implementation of the recommendations.Those recommendations will be subject to Cabinet approval. I assure all present that I want that work to be concluded before the end of the year. The second part of this relates to measures we can implement in the short term, in advance of the legislation passing. The pyrite remediation legislation will not work in this instance. We need separate legislation and regulation. I believe there are measures we can take in a very short space of time, however, particularly in the area of fire defects.

There are two other stakeholders or parts of the sector that also need to be part of the solution. Yes, one of those is the banks, and we have engaged with them. The second is the insurance sector. The excess levels on insurance policies held by residents of some apartment blocks are now set so high that it nearly deems those apartments uninsured. I have engaged directly with Insurance Ireland. We have had a positive engagement there. We need to consider apartment blocks that have already been remediated and what the change in insurance status has been from pre-remediation to post-remediation.

The issue of retrospection has to be considered. It will form part of the memorandum I will bring to the Government. It is a complex issue. We need to make sure works that have been done were carried out by qualified people and certified appropriately. I assure those who have taken the time to come here this evening to listen to this debate that I, as Minister, am absolutely committed to bringing this scheme forward, getting Cabinet approval for it, moving on interim measures that can assist people now, and then moving forward with the legislation to put the scheme on a solid basis from which we can move on.

I will make two final points. I wish to briefly address the issues in respect of defective blocks, which do not form part of the motion but are as important. I will be meeting Donegal County Council again tomorrow. I will be meeting representatives of the Mica Action Group tomorrow. We are seeing more people access the scheme, and that is to be welcomed. The scheme is moving forward. I brought the scheme forward and it was passed by this Dáil. The Government is committed to helping in that space as well. How we structure it and how we start it will be so important. There will be measures we can take forward on an interim basis. It will require redress for residents. There is no question about that. I will continue to make good on the commitment we put into the programme for Government - to grasp this nettle once and for all, make people's homes safe and allow them to get back on with their lives. I campaigned for that in opposition and I am now in a position to do something about it as housing Minister.

I respectfully ask for the co-operation of all Members of the Opposition to make sure we can bring forward that legislation as expeditiously as possible. That is important I welcome the opportunity to debate this matter. I will certainly update colleagues in the Dáil post my bringing that memo to Cabinet at the end of this month.

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