Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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I am grateful for the opportunity to raise again this critical issue for my constituency. Ongoing complaints are still being made to my office about the pyrite infill disaster affecting new housing in the north fringe in Baldoyle and Clongriffin in Dublin North-East. Since mid-summer, residents in these and other north side and west side estates have been devastated to learn from Menolly Homes about the problem mineral pyrite which has been used in excessively high concentrations in the floors and foundations of vast new estates. Pyrite was formerly known as fool's gold and is an iron sulphide that expands if exposed to air or water and reacts with oxygen and water to form sulphuric acid. This causes much cracking of walls and ceilings and results in moving doors.

Residents in Drynam Hall estate in Kinsealy, Beauparc in Clongriffin and at the Coast, Baldoyle, are enduring long months of testing and dislocation in which ground floors of affected homes are being excavated and removed down to a depth of 3 m. The defective infill was sourced by Menolly Homes and other builders from a quarry located near Ballycoolin in Dublin 15 which is owned by the Irish Asphalt division of the Lagan Group.

In my view and that of my constituents, the response of the Dublin City Council manager, the Fingal County Council manager and the Ministers for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to this crisis in the construction industry has been feeble and totally inadequate. The only response from the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has been to remind the local authorities of existing and completely inadequate building regulations.

At a recent meeting with the Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council managers, I was again disappointed that they have not ordered an immediate and full traceability audit of all building sites supplied by this quarry. Even more astonishingly, they have not contacted the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to request the immediate closure of this quarry which, incredibly, remains open. This is a grave dereliction of duty by the two Ministers and the two local authority managers concerned.

There were earlier allegations that this pyrite contaminated infill was also used in major infrastructural projects and the owners of the quarry concerned were partners on the construction of the Dublin Port tunnel.

The Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council managers argued that the key problem in this matter is the self-regulation of the building industry. Resources have not been provided by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to permit these two and the other 34 major local authorities to police building standards covering the housing delivered to often vulnerable young householders with huge mortgages to repay. Legislation to empower and resource local authorities fully to invigilate house building quality standards was clearly urgent five to seven years ago but now, with more than 500,000 new homes built without effective quality standards, the horse has clearly bolted and young mortgage payers are left with often disastrous results.

The two Ministers, Deputies Gormley and Ryan, have conveniently forgotten many of the strongly asserted beliefs they espoused in Opposition. They formerly supported the Labour Party Bill introduced by the former Deputy, Seán Ryan, to forbid the granting of new planning permissions for newly built estates before existing estates were fully finished to an adequate standard. Likewise, there seems to be no sympathy from the Green Party Ministers or their colleagues for householders with rapidly cracking walls. The construction company concerned, Killoe Developments, refuses to discuss the matter or acknowledge any liability based on defective and self-enforced building regulations. The Minister, Deputy Gormley, simply refuses to answer questions on this company's behaviour.

This appalling development in the north side and west side estates and elsewhere in Leinster has been regrettably very poorly reported in the media, with the notable exception of the Evening Herald, owing to the major newspapers' total dependence on commercial and residential development advertising in addition to auctioneers' advertising. The Irish Times on Thursday is often dwarfed by the supplement advertising commercial property and residential housing. Several national newspapers seem just as compromised in this matter as past politicians who depended on developers for financial support.

Self-regulation in the building industry must be brought to an immediate end. A dedicated task force led by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the managers of Fingal County Council and Dublin City Council must investigate immediately the closure of the affected quarry, conduct a full traceability audit of its products, immediately implement SR21 of the guidance document of the National Standards Authority of Ireland and establish a new national standard on pyrite and other problem minerals present in infill, especially for housing construction.

Given the numbers of citizens affected by the present awful circumstances, the Minister should establish a national pyrite investigation and monitoring agency based on the initiatives taken by the authorities in Ontario and Quebec. Failure by the Minister or local authorities to act will result almost certainly in a considerable charge on the two local authorities, the Department and taxpayers in future. This matter should be addressed urgently and taken very seriously.

Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am responding on behalf of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, who sends his apologies.I acknowledge fully the genuine difficulties experienced by homeowners whose homes have been affected by the use of pyrite in certain developments in and around County Dublin. The purchase of a home by any of us is a major investment, financially and emotionally, and I am keenly aware of the hopes and expectations that accompany the transaction. This issue has already been addressed in a number of parliamentary questions to date and I can report some progress regarding the quality standards of new homes as they pertain to pyrite.

The certification of products is the responsibility of the National Standards Authority of Ireland, NSAI. When the issue of pyrite arose some months ago and following an intervention from my Department, the NSAI moved quickly to reconvene its aggregates panel to give urgent consideration to the matter. The Department is represented on this panel, together with representatives of the construction industry. Following a public consultation process, the NSAI has now published a new standard recommendation, which is a definitive amendment to existing standard recommendation 21 on the use of aggregates as infill for civil engineering and road construction work. The new standard recommendation came into effect on 7 December 2007 and the intention is that it will address the quality standards of new homes in so far as problems relating to pyrite are concerned. It is now intended to adopt this NSAI standard recommendation in the relevant technical guidance document associated with the building regulations.

It would be helpful for me to set out the overarching legal framework for the construction of new houses. The national building regulations set out the legal requirements for the construction of new buildings, including houses, and extensions to and material alterations of existing buildings. The related technical guidance documents provide technical guidance on how to comply with building regulations.

Under the provisions of the Building Control Act 1990, responsibility for compliance with the building regulations rests with the builder and the owner of a building. Enforcement of the regulations is a matter for the 37 local building control authorities which are empowered to carry out inspections and initiate enforcement proceedings when considered necessary. The House has been advised in this regard that Fingal County Council has been in direct contact with the developers and the quarry concerned regarding problems encountered following the use of pyrite as an under-floor infill material in certain developments.

Having consulted the statutory Building Regulations Advisory Body, the Department issued a circular letter, BC 6/2007, to each county manager and local building control authority on 16 August 2007 to bring the issue to their notice and to request their co-operation in the enforcement of the relevant requirements set out therein. The circular also brought to their attention a notice issued by Fingal County Council on 26 July 2007 on this matter.

The resolution of any problems arising between homeowners and their builders is ultimately a matter for the parties concerned, namely, the homeowner, the relevant developer and the builder's insurer. Where the construction of a house is the subject of a contract between the client and the builder, enforcement of this contract is a civil matter. The measures I have outlined represent the appropriate response to the issues raised by the Deputy.

Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Broughan and the staff a very happy and peaceful Christmas.