Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I have little to add to what Deputy Smith said on the substantive issue except to encourage those in the Construction Defects Alliance, the Apartment Owners' Network and all those campaigning on this issue to keep up their battle. It is because they have campaigned that they are forcing this discussion in this House and that they will force the Government to give them the 100% redress they want and deserve, and accountability for those profit-hungry cowboys who were let off the leash by successive Governments. The fact that the Government let these people off the leash who were willing to leave the homeowners with the trauma of unsafe buildings and huge financial costs means the Government owes them. The Minister needs to give that commitment tonight. He needs to engage every step of the way with the people in the Gallery and the other groups to ensure at an absolute minimum they get the 100% redress that the mica campaigners and the pyrite campaigners fought for, and accountability for the rogues and cowboys who did this.

In the brief time I have available, I will address another group and pose a series of questions which the Minister probably does not have the answer to. Information has been brought to me to the effect that the Housing Agency is now suspending payments and further leases to Home For Life, the private entity that was set up in 2007 and approved to do mortgage to rent for people with mortgages in distress, on the basis that it has not done repairs to defects in buildings. Hundreds of people had their homes bought by Home for Life and Home for Life is getting paid rent by local authorities. Those people are, therefore, now local authority tenants.

As I understand it this is because defects were not being remedied and repairs were not being done. It poses the question as to whether hundreds of people in Home for Life are living in unsafe buildings. We need to find this out quickly. Did the local authorities that did the arrangements for Home for Life do the surveys they were supposed to do? They were supposed to inspect those houses within 90 days to make sure the repairs had been done. Certainly in the cases I have come across this did not happen. Are hundreds of people living in unsafe places? Were the local authorities at fault for not doing proper surveys? What was Home for Life doing? Essentially it had cornered the market for mortgage to rent but was not willing to put in the money to remedy structural defects and other problems that may render the houses unsafe.

What will now happen if Home for Life is in trouble? The Minister needs to come back to me on this. I do not expect answers tonight. If the company is in trouble, what will happen to the 480 people approved for mortgage to rent to prevent the repossession of their homes and the more than 700 people in Home for Life who may have defects or problems that need to be remedied? The State has to remedy these defects and protect these people if Home for Life has let them down and if council and statutory regulations were not adequate to protect them.

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