Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also commend Deputy Duffy on bringing forward this legislation. It goes back to the 1970s or before, when many of the houses that were built across the State were not up to standard. We see them all the time. All of us would have people coming into our constituency offices talking about mould growing in their houses and dampness coming up through the floor. Some of them have to buy a dehumidifier and plug it in in the bedroom and there might be 3 l of water in it that evening. That is common because when these floors were put in there was no membrane put under them. There was no insulation put under them and the dampness keeps rising up through them. That is forever. I have come across situations where people have gone in, room by room, dug up the floors out of their houses and taken them out. They had to do that work bit by bit over many years.

The problem we have here, which was pointed out to me by somebody earlier, is that anything you buy in life you have some comeback on. If you buy a car and six months later the engine goes on it, you go back to the garage and they have to stand over it. That is the person you bought it from. The manufacturer may be the one responsible for the faulty engine but the person you bought it from is the person who is responsible. However, for the biggest purchase you make in life, namely, a house, you have very little comeback if there is something wrong. That is the core of the issue here and all the other things we have seen. In my constituency in Sligo, across the west and across Donegal, we have the scheme the Government has put in place. What I am hearing is that there are difficulties with it and people are not satisfied that they are getting the full level of support they would like. I know Sligo is not in the scheme yet. The reason all of that happened is because we did not have the proper regulatory process in place. It is the same with the apartments across many parts of the country where we have serious problems with fire safety issues and other defects.

We need to recognise that there has to be accountability and that accountability has to come back to the person who is selling the property. The developer that built the property and put that property on the market is responsible. We have to put legislation in place to do that. It is quite disappointing to look back at the Law Reform Commission in the 1970s and 1980s talking about this and proposing that this should happen when we are here well into the next century and we still have not got it in place. There needs to be some recognition. We can talk forever about what happened in the past and how bad things were in the past but when we sit up and look at it, we still have the same process in place and it could happen again tomorrow. We really need to get our act together here. With great respect to the proposer of this legislation, we need to see this come about. I know he based the Bill on the committee's report, Safe as Houses, which set forward what needed to happen. We should have had this done quite some time ago.

The Minister of State pointed out in his comments that there may be aspects of the Bill that need work. That is the case with many situations where legislation comes before the Houses. There needs to be an emphasis on making sure we have, very speedily, a legislative process in place so we can have a law whereby people who build and provide houses for the general public have to be responsible for the standard of that home and can be held accountable before a court or whatever else. I take the Minister of State's point. We do not want people going to court all the time. That is not what we want. We want the good house built in the first place so that does not happen. If the people who build the house know they can get away with it, we have a problem. They are not going to put the quality of workmanship or materials into it that is required and they are not going to meet the regulations unless there is an adequate stick there to ensure they do that, and unless there is adequate monitoring and regulations in place and there is some way in which that can be resolved, whether through the local authority or whoever else doing inspections, holding people to account and making sure it is done properly on the first day. That is what we want to see happen but those people also have to know that if they do not do that, if they try to pull a fast one, they are not going to get away with it and the householder can take them to court and win and get compensation and get their house put back into order. That is what needs to happen. That is why this legislation is so important.

We often have differences in here around various things. That is fine and that needs to happen but in this particular case, this is legislation that should move speedily. I implore the Minister of State to ensure that. I see he is putting his thumb up to say that is going to happen. I hope that thumbs-up means we will be back here very quickly with this going through all the Stages in the Oireachtas to make it law and ensure people who buy a home are satisfied that home is something they can have for life. They should be able to be sure they get a quality product for the large amount of money they put on a mortgage and have to work hard to pay back, and are not going to be left in the lurch like so many people have been. It is heartbreaking for people who are in these circumstances. We come across them all the time.

With many of these houses, there is something in people's heads that because they are going to be built for rent and not for a home, there is a sense of "Ah sure, it will be good enough". That needs to change. Unless there is adequate legislation and sanctions are in place to make sure that does not happen in the future, we are going to continually be dealing with this situation where the State, unfortunately, will be on the hook because that is who ends up on the hook anyway. The State ended up on the hook for the mica situation and the pyrite situation and all these things. We need to make sure that does not happen again and that is why this particular legislation is so important. I commend the proposer and hope the Minister of State's thumbs-up actually means there will be delivery.

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