Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming here this evening. In 2020, a husband and wife started the process of assessing their house, which they knew at the time had defective blocks. One year later, a young woman - a wife and a mother to three children - sadly passed away. This has been a very difficult and traumatic time for this family, and in the midst of their grieving they still have to contend with a house that is slowly falling down. In the words of the husband, "This is an awful weight hanging over us." This family is being asked to reapply again, to start again the long process of applying to get on the defective blocks scheme, four years later. There has to be flexibility in this scheme which would account for or lend itself to facilitating people in this situation. There is still a disconnect in the understanding of what people are going through. The psychological burden is too heavy for people to endure. The intergenerational trauma is affecting primary students, secondary students and third level students in houses with defective blocks.

When people hear about this scheme, they are quick to make judgment calls: "Sure look at all the money they are getting. Look at their big houses." The reality is that people are caught up in a bureaucratic nightmare and that trying to navigate through this process is nothing short of torture. The issue of defective blocks will not go away and needs to be dealt with. Communication is poor, trust is at an all-time low, and confidence in the process is slowly ebbing away.

Do not get me wrong. Potentially, we could have a good scheme here, but the feedback I am getting is that it is not working at the moment. There are deficiencies and there is an appeals process embedded in the legislation which is not up and running. We have issues with terraced and semi-detached houses. Imagine asking someone in a semi-detached house to knock the house down, with the other house attached to it not being eligible, and move it a couple of inches away from the other house and build what is effectively a detached house in the space of an adjoining house. There is a feeling that there are stalling tactics. There are major issues with people not being able to access credit. There are affordability issues. There are people who face trauma compounded upon trauma.

I ask the Minister of State for her intervention and to make contact with the Minister for housing to ask him to make a personal intervention in the issues I have raised. Furthermore, for the many people who find themselves in very difficult situations, the scheme needs to be addressed. Yes, there will be a review. We do not know when that review will happen or how the scheme will be reviewed, but it has to be done immediately. We have a scheme here that potentially can work but at the moment is not working.

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