Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this important motion. I welcome those in the Public Gallery who are directly affected by this issue. I can only imagine what they are thinking listening to this debate. Possibly, it is that they have heard all of this before.

It is difficult to think of another national scandal that displays the worst of what Ireland is and has been. Moneyed developers maximised their profits, often by lobbying for the political system to bow to them. In many instances, they constructed fire traps. They let people buy these at exorbitant prices and, as has been rightly said, they then liquidated, reimagined, renamed and re-established themselves and never had to take responsibility for what they did.

A number of aspects strike those of us who deal with families in this situation. The first is the fear they are living with constantly. They go to bed looking at the ceilings and walls around them that they are mentally at war with because they believe that where they live could kill them. There is a sense of guilt that they are raising their families in apartments that could kill them. The worst part is that they cannot even talk about it because they are worried about the reputational damage the apartment block or area would suffer. They want to be careful in their language in case the media reports on these death traps, leading to the investments they have made and the mortgages they have been paying effectively becoming worthless. It is a devastating set of circumstances. This national scandal has cost lives. I remember a man called Fiachra Daly. At the height of the Priory Hall scandal, he took his own life because of the pressure that he and his family were under.

Whenever the history of this situation is written, it will rank as one of the major national scandals in terms of how badly Ireland and politics in this country worked and how much power these developers had to change the political, planning and regulatory systems to get what they wanted and build what they wanted to whatever standard they wanted in order to maximise their profits. As soon as anything came back to their door, they just changed who they were to avoid taking responsibility and kept going. It is remarkable. When you sit down with these families and ask who they can take a case against, it turns out that they cannot because the cowboys who built the homes that could kill them do not exist anymore. The families cannot talk about it because they are worried that the reputational damage will hurt their investments and they hope that some work can be done to repair their properties before they ever have to discuss the situation. It is a vice grip on people's bodies, minds and families.

The families in the Public Gallery, those I am dealing with and thousands more are dependent on - I was going to say the Minister, but he is correct - us. They do not want to hear a political squabble, point scoring and us one-upping one another. We are probably at a better stage now in terms of getting somewhere towards resolving the situation than we were in recent years. I do not want people who are listening to this debate in the Public Gallery to go home angry and just angry. They need to go home from this debate feeling that they might get somewhere. When they heard "ten years", I am sure it broke their hearts a little.

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