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

The Minister, I suppose, is right that people can continue to apply but, as we know, there is a very significant number of people, particularly in Donegal, who are not able to get through stage 1. Part of that is because of the restrictions on IS 465. From what our committee was told, it is unlikely completion of the review or changes to the scheme, in respect of the National Standards Authority of Ireland's work, will be completed this year. That means many people who have already applied to the scheme will not be able to progress until the enhanced scheme is open and transferred to the Housing Agency.

Obviously, we do not know what the new square metre or square foot rates are but under the old rates in the legislation, many homeowners have told us, at the committee and in correspondence, that even where they had modest-sized family homes of 80 sq. m or 90 sq. m, they would be short €30,000, €40,000 and €50,000. Obviously, I will wait to see the SCSI's rates to see if that is rectified. Can the Minister confirm that more than 90% of the people who apply under the enhanced defective block scheme will get 100% like-for-like remediation? Can he also confirm what the timeline will be for the retrospection in terms of how far back he will go with the certified works for defective block homeowners?

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