Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I also wish to raise the paltry bonds payable by developers for estates to ensure they are finished so that they can be taken in charge. It is such a small amount that in some areas of my constituency, 15 years later some estates have still not been taken in charge. Similarly, the bonds payable by companies for large-scale contracts are often not worth the paper they are written on. There is no incentive at all.

In my county of South Dublin, several tenders have collapsed because the local authority had discretion but it possibly did not go as heavy as it could with the rules that were in place. I also contend that there are a lot of loopholes in the rules. I was inspired to raise this issue tonight because of the Lucan swimming pool project. It was approved by councillors in 2018 and got delayed a little bit through Covid, but the council took its eye off the ball and it got to the stage whereby if it tried to end the contract, as there was a clause allowing for that, it would probably take longer to retender and it would cost more. The project has already gone up by between €4 million and €5 million from the original estimate.

The Minister of State referred to discretion. Companies have a lot of outs, for example, where, as she mentioned, they can provide evidence of reform such as the payment of compensation, co-operation with investigating authorities and changes in organisation or personnel. I have not seen too many situations where companies have been refused point-blank on the basis that they have not sufficiently reformed or that the new group of directors is not evidence of sufficient change. Local authorities have too much discretion. First, they need to be given less discretion. At national level we need to tighten up the rules so we do not have as many outs or little clauses that they can get out of because the general population have seen the costs and time span increase and they are not happy with that. We need to get a little tougher.

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