Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle for facilitating this important Topical Issue debate. I also thank the Minister. He has had a busy day and I appreciate that he is in the Chamber tonight during one of the final speaking slots of this week in Dáil Éireann. I hugely appreciate his attendance to deal with this matter.

Many Clare families have pyrite in their homes. Those houses are cracked and ready to fall in. Many of them are watching proceedings to hear the matter addressed on the floor on the Dáil. They are hoping for positive responses.

Many of us were outside three weeks ago when a cohort of people arrived on North Wall Quay. Many of them were from counties Donegal and Mayo. There was a smaller contingent from my own county of Clare. They were protesting about the presence of pyrite in their homes and the redress scheme that has been in place for the past 14 months or so to address it in counties Donegal and Mayo. In particular, they were highlighting some of the deficiencies in the redress scheme. We heard earlier this week that homeowners in Donegal and Mayo who are participating in that redress scheme will now benefit from six years of an exemption from paying local property tax. It is not much in the greater scheme of things but every little bit counts. It is wrong to take money from these families when they are hard pressed and their houses are, effectively, falling in around them. Thousands of protestors arrived from Donegal and Mayo. I read in the media that 45 buses came from Donegal alone. There was also a contingent from Clare.

An expert group in 2016 estimated that 5,000 houses in Ireland are affected by pyrite. That did not factor in what is emerging in County Clare. There is a group run by Dr. Martina Cleary with 52 homeowners affiliated to it. We estimate there are several hundred homes, possibly including 34 council houses, in Clare with pyrite in them, all structurally defective and at risk of serious damage or falling down. It is estimated that 1,000 council houses nationally are similarly affected and that the redress could cost anything up to €2.4 billion. That is stark.

Under the current regime, the State pays 90% of the remedial works but there is a need to move quickly to a 100% model. I noted during a previous Topical Issue debate an undertaking that the review group looking at the redress scheme at the moment will report back by the end of the month. There is a major role for quarries to play. Cassidy Brothers in Donegal are culpable of selling blocks en masseto house builders throughout Donegal. Those blocks are now crumbling. In County Clare, we too have a quarry that is still trading healthily. I do not think it has ever had a bad day of trading, not even during the recession. It has been experiencing a boom for a long time. There has to be a major role for those quarry operators when redress is fully paid out.

Those are my questions. I will come in again with some supplementary remarks. The people of Clare do not want to be the poor relations who are left without any redress. If an initiative is under way in counties Donegal and Mayo whereby those affected by pyrite will not pay local property tax this year or for five subsequent years, I do not see why Clare homeowners should lose out. I ask the Minister for Finance to look favourably on my request that a similar scheme of exemption would operate for those in County Clare who have confirmed pyrite in their homes.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising what I know is a very serious matter. I have experience of this issue from working with colleagues in trying to respond to the huge stress and anxiety that I know has been caused to many homeowners in Deputy Crowe's county and in counties Donegal and Mayo because of the damage that was done to their homes due to the presence of pyrite.

The case at the moment is that the exemption criterion for accessing the local property tax exemption is that a home must be accepted into the defective concrete blocks grant scheme. I understand that the scheme at the moment only applies to homeowners in Donegal and Mayo and, therefore, because the scheme only applies to those counties, the families, constituents and homeowners on behalf of whom the Deputy is raising this issue would not be able to access this exemption. However, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage is currently looking at the Government's broader response to the issue of pyrite. Part of that review will be the breadth of the defective concrete block grant scheme. I am going to raise with the Minister the issue the Deputy has raised here. I know the Deputy will press for his constituents to be included in this scheme and thereby be in a position to access the local property tax exemption. As he said, while the exemption from local property tax is but a small contribution to the challenges those homeowners have lived with for so long, it is nonetheless important for us to give it. It is important that we recognise that the properties affected by pyrite have been affected fundamentally and have not been a home in the way these families and homeowners would want.

The case at the moment is that a homeowner needs to be in the concrete block grant scheme to avail of this exemption. The question I will raise with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is what should be the breadth of that scheme and how it will feed into the Government response to this issue that I know the Deputy is concerned about and raising on behalf of his constituents.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Exemption from paying local property tax is not a new phenomenon. It has been there for a number of years for new builds but also for houses in what were deemed to be unfinished estates. What we are talking about here in terms of defective blocks, pyrite and homes that are cracking from the gable end down is much different. It far outweighs any other category of exemption we have had heretofore. People in County Clare need some undertaking that when an application for a county is lodged, and it is imminent, the same positive undertakings that have been given this week from Government relating to counties Donegal and Mayo would stand in principle for those in County Clare.

Overall, something is fundamentally wrong with the redress scheme. It is cumbersome. There is a redress scheme for counties Donegal, Mayo and Limerick. There have been defective blocks in County Louth as well. It is run off on a county-by-county basis. I cannot for the life of me fathom why there is not a nationwide scheme for this. It is conceivable in any county that when someone built a house in the 1980s or 1990s, that person drove over the Border with a pick-up truck, brought 300 or 400 concrete blocks and used them in the construction of a house. People do not source materials only from within their own county. This goes around the country. The remediation scheme also needs to be a nationwide scheme, not county by county.

People in County Clare want a redress scheme more than anything and that will be coming very quickly. It should not be as cumbersome, however. The scheme in counties Donegal and Mayo took years to devise and implement and now we are seeing it is again coming up short. People are also somewhat aggrieved. I know some of this falls under the remit of the Minister, Deputy O'Brien. I appreciate that. I have been speaking to him almost daily lately.

The expert review group, which looks at some of the flaws and functionality of the redress scheme, will conclude its work by the end of the month and County Clare has been left out of that. Those people need to be very much brought into the room. In my book, there is no point in reinventing the wheel. Schemes in counties Donegal and Mayo are going to be overhauled, it is hoped to positive effect. The Clare scheme should not be left behind, however.

I am of the view that a major public building in a certain county has pyrite in it. Many people hope it does not. I hope it does for the simple reason it will advance the cause of County Clare. It will ensure we are no longer laggards and we will be going to the top of the list. I hope that is proven because in every Irish property from the traditional cottages of the 1800s, the cornerstone was where the building got its strength. In County Clare, they are cracking from the cornerstone up. You can put your hands through the gaps. If they are not dealt with, these buildings will collapse like that apartment in Miami, Florida last week in which lives were lost. That is where it is down to. I thank the Minister for his time and his reply this evening.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Crowe. Some of the very important issues he raised are outside the remit of the answer I have been able to give him. I know the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, will be well aware of the issues raised by the Deputy on behalf of his constituents. I will engage with the Minister, as the Deputy has been doing. The Finance (Local Property Tax) (Amendment) Bill 2021, which will be in front of the House next week, is trying to be a nationwide scheme. It needs to be a nationwide scheme because it is a tax measure. Because of that, the access to the scheme needs to be very clear, simple and definitive, which is why access to the grant block scheme is the way in which we have designed the access criteria.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. He has acknowledged that the figures and costs involved in this are huge. Equally, however, the harm, anxiety and damage that has been caused by the presence of pyrite is equally huge. The working group that is being led by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage will be working hard to come forward with comprehensive proposals in the coming weeks to respond to the issues raised by Deputy Crowe.