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

I answered this question earlier in response to Deputy Ó Broin but am happy to do so again. We will have another webinar for residents next Monday, which will be attended by representatives of the Housing Agency. Between 400 and 600 people have attended various webinars and we are directly engaging with residents in this regard. I want the interim scheme relating to fire defects to open for applications this month, if at all possible. I assure residents that the Government and the three parties that constitute it are fully committed to the scheme. We will need legislation next year - there is no question about that - but, in the meantime, we will open the applications for the interim measures to promote safety. We have done quite a lot of detailed work with the Housing Agency on specific apartment schemes as well. It was important to get the code of practice agreed because we need to know when people are applying what types of work can be done and what is in scope.

We needed the input of the chief fire officer, those experts and fire engineers as well. That took a lot of time - rightly so. We have now published that so there is clarity on what needs to be done and the process. We have also opened the information portal. A number of developments and individuals can now input their details into that. We are capturing a lot of that data. We will go through that specifically in the webinar on Monday evening. We are close to opening the interim scheme for applications.

As I mentioned to other Deputies earlier, on an administrative basis, for those who paid for works already, are certified and will meet criteria, we will early next year start reimbursing them and making retrospective payments. Where people and the management company are in a position to go ahead with works, they should, if they have the finance to do it. They will get that money back on a 100% basis. I hope that gives the Deputy an update. I thank him for his particular interest and engagement on this issue.

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