Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Last year, the then Government finally announced an increase in the cap. It was in line with the recommendations of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, who examined the real costings on the ground. The reality is that the Government did not apply that to people who are going through the scheme already; it was only for new entrants. That was cruel. The Government made it clear that it was going to amend the legislation to sort this out. I appealed to the Government to do that before election. I stood in front of the Taoiseach and Tánaiste separately and appealed to them to bring in the amendments. We would make time and it could be done. I feared that this would happen. Unfortunately, I have been proven right. We are now sitting in May and there is no sign of this amendment to the legislation. It is straightforward. I raised this directly with the Minister, Deputy James Browne, who was in County Donegal in recent days. I made it clear to not talk about ten Stages of legislation. We will do everything in the Opposition to get this through. No pre-legislative scrutiny will be required if the Government honours what it said it was going to do last year, which was to make this increase in the cap available to everybody who is currently going through scheme. This is really cruel. People are struggling with the €40,000, €50,000, €60,000, €70,000 or €80,0000 plus that they must find themselves. They do not have the money to make the final payments to pay the builders. This is urgent. It has been urgent since late last year. I appeal to the Government now to bring this through as soon as possible. It should be brought through it through next week. It will be facilitated by the Opposition in every way. We will do everything we can to make it happen next week in the Dáil and Seanad; there is no excuse. This is a simple straightforward amendment to the legislation. It should have been done late last year. It needs to be done now.

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