Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The history of the regulation of construction and quarries in Ireland is really appalling and counties like Donegal are paying a profound price for that. I live in Buncrana, the epicentre of the defective blocks crisis. Not a day goes by that I do not talk to a family whose lives are utterly destroyed by the fact that their homes are falling apart. It is not just about the cost of fixing it, but the mental health effects and the utter devastation. This is not just about defective blocks either. It is about defective apartments, pyrite, mica, pyrrhotite, iron sulphide and the absolute failure to regulate the industry. Even as we speak, technically the quarries that produced these defective blocks that fall apart like Weetabix, are still not subject to proper regulation. They still self-regulate to a large extent.

I want to take the opportunity to speak in this debate because part of this legislation focuses on quarries and on the training of people in this industry to do things properly, to have a standard and to have oversight. That is very welcome. The body that is tasked at present to some degree with oversight of the quarries to ensure things are done properly is the National Building Control and Market Surveillance Office, NBCMSO, linked to Dublin City Council. That body was tasked with carrying out an audit, in partnership with Donegal County Council and the Geological Survey of Ireland, of the quarries in Donegal to see what is the state of play as we speak. I attended the meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage when it engaged with the NBCMSO after it completed the audit. I found it really alarming that even after the utter devastation caused to thousands of families in Donegal, Mayo and other counties in the west of Ireland - it is estimated that as many as 14 counties are affected, which makes this a growing crisis - and even after what the Government has said will cost us billions of euro, we still have not got access to test some of the quarries we know to be responsible for this crisis. Petrographic tests of these quarries have not been done because the people who were doing the audit could not get access. I cannot think of a scandal that has devastated so many people, at a cost of billions of euro to the State and untold costs for years and decades to come, and still we do not have full accountability or full access to the truth and cannot give full assurance to people that this will never happen again. That is why I wanted to raise this today. We have to be 100% certain that this will never happen again, that no quarry in Ireland will be allowed to produce products of the devastating impact that some produced. It is not just an issue in Donegal but right down the west of Ireland, involving a wide range of counties.

In terms of the audit that was carried out by the NBCMSO, the recommendations for training and so on, this new body will have oversight of that.

We need to make sure - this is the key issue - that we do not allow quarries to produce concrete blocks that have too high a content of pyrrhotite, iron sulphites, mica, pyrite and any of the minerals that are defined in Irish law and in European law. We must not allow it to happen. It cannot be allowed to happen. We must ensure that there is not self-regulation, whereby builders just do whatever they want. There must be full oversight - full eyes upon this industry - to make sure this never happens again. Whatever about the devastated families in Donegal, the west of Ireland and other counties, this will impact on every citizen of this State. It will cost multiple billions of euro by the time this is all finished. That is the cost of providing redress for all the families. I cannot think of any other scandal where we would not make sure it could absolutely never happen again.

In terms of this legislation, which is a welcome step in the right direction, I ask that we absolutely ensure that quarries can never again produce defective concrete blocks, that they absolutely comply with Irish and European law, and that every effort is made to oversee them, get access to the quarries, train them and apply the law rigorously. That is the least we can do to repay the debt to the many thousands of families whose lives have been destroyed because of the failures of the past.

See this speech in context