Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)

I raise deeply worrying and entirely unacceptable issues for apartment owners and renters who are experiencing them in my constituency of Dublin South-Central. Let me paint a picture for the Minister of State. When I visited some of these apartment blocks, I saw fire safety hazards and potential for flooding. In another apartment block, I saw water coming into people's homes. This was not from a river. They do not know where this water is coming from. It has dripped into their home so much that it is now forming mould behind cupboards that have to be taken off. It is lifting skirting boards. I have been in their homes, and they invited me in to show me what exactly was going on. They have a wonderful area outside, which could be a communal area, but because it so badly damaged by water and the lack of ability to have any remediation, they are not able to use it. After I visited, a few weeks later, part of that apartment building fell apart. The family who live underneath have twins. They are brand new babies. If it had been warm enough to be out, they could have been sitting out underneath that balcony and they would have been seriously injured or worse.

The difficulty is that they are stuck in a situation where they are not able to get this remediation because they do not seem to be able to do it. They have a sinking fund, which is sinking rapidly into things that should be fixed ordinarily. There are developers that still own parts of those apartments. They are not paying money to the owner management company. There are people who own their apartments and they have spent a lot of money on these apartments. I do not know if the Minister of State knows my constituency, but Dublin 8 is an area where properties are very expensive. These properties were bought at the height of the boom and they were incredibly expensive. They are gorgeous, but people are frightened to live there. They are at their wits' end. One of things that I remember from that meeting was that one couple said they hated to hear the sound of dripping because they knew that was when something was going to go bad. In their minds, they hear drip, drip, drip all the time. They have buckets, pans and pots trying to gather the water, but they are emptying them all the time. It is causing them absolute stress. When I met them, what should have been a wonderful place to live in was an extremely stressful place to live in.

Will the Government deliver a comprehensive and fully funded statutory remediation scheme for apartment owners and renters? According to parliamentary records, legislation to establish an apartments and duplex defects remediation scheme is being drafted. The Government has approved in principle such a scheme with the aim of covering 100% of the eligible remediation costs for purpose-built apartments and duplexes constructed between 1991 and 2013, but the scheme seems to be unimplemented. These people living in these apartments are not able to access this. I am not going to name them because that would not be fair, but I am happy to talk to the Minister of State afterwards and give him the names. It is causing them a huge amount of stress. Will the Government provide a clear and publicly published timeline for when this legislation will be passed, when the scheme will be opened and when affected residents can apply? Will the Minister of State guarantee that as part of that scheme no apartment owner or renter will be forced to shoulder the costs of the defects that they now have by ensuring that remediation costs already incurred or levied will be eligible for refund or support under the legacy defects provisions of the scheme?

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