Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

It has now been two years since the Government received the report into the scale of defects in apartments and duplexes, revealing that a majority of the properties built between 1991 and 2013 were likely affected. There may be up to 100,000 apartments and duplexes whose owners face an average cost, which is probably increased since, of €25,000 to repair. It has been a year and a half since the Government announced that there would be a 100% redress scheme, with retrospection. It has been a similar amount of time, about 16 months, since the Government announced that there would be an interim scheme for emergency fire safety measures. The scheme has opened and almost 300 individual applications have been made for different apartment blocks and multi-unit developments, representing almost 16,000 residential units. However, still not a single cent has been paid out in terms of interim funding emergency fire safety measures. There appear to be significant delays. We still do not have the legislation in terms of heads of Bill or in terms of the overall scheme. It is very unlikely at this stage that we will get that before the next general election. This means that all we and these homeowners have is a promise, which is not good enough. We need to have action.

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