Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is only one part of the problem. As I said, this scheme was introduced and announced by the Government in November 2021. It is now 2024 and there are 1,300 people coming up to Inishowen to say it is not working for them. We had people telling us that they were demolishing their homes and it would cost them €100,000 out of their own pocket to rebuild them because the scheme is not fit for purpose. Many others in the room could not even do that because they did not have the ability to borrow that level of money. Five hundred people turned up in Mayo at the meeting.

It is over six months since BPFI put a proposal together to help only a number of these families in terms of bridging loan. Zero per cent bridging finance is the proposal to the Department of housing. Six months later, we still have not been able to get over this hurdle. It is ridiculous.

In the middle of all of this - I am conscious I am talking about proposals and the Minister will get up to say that the Department will need to do this and that and all the rest, and all these checks and balances have to be done - the people I was talking to in Inishowen are people who have got mental health problems. People are no longer with us today because they took their own lives as a result of issues regarding defective blocks. This is not only about crumbling homes; this is about crumbling families and mental health crumbling right before our eyes. It is shameful that there has not been a result in relation to this proposal, one way or another.

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