Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Amendment No. 1 has been ruled out of order.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Amendments Nos. 2 to 4, inclusive, have been ruled out of order.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Amendment No. 5 is in the names of Deputies Cian O'Callaghan, Ó Broin, Conway-Walsh, Mac Lochlainn, Doherty, Pringle and Harkin. Amendments Nos. 5, 148 and 149 are related and may be discussed together.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Amendment No. 6 has been ruled out of order.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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A very significant amount of public money is involved in this and the homeowners themselves are taxpayers, which is a point that needs to be made repeatedly because it is an issue that got skewed over the course of the campaign. There was a certain maligning in that regard. This €2.7 billion is a massive amount of public money to deal with redress. It is important that there is expediency in all of this and that the money is ring-fenced for redress for homes with defective blocks containing pyrite or mica. There is a turbulent economic situation circling for autumn. The inflation rate is already at 9.6% and, with the war in Ukraine continuing and inflation on an upward trajectory globally, there is no knowing what budgetary context we may be in come late autumn and into the winter. I understand that there are very soon to be further reports relating to defective apartments. It is very important that, while this €2.7 billion is ring-fenced, redress be expedited and further improved and refined by regulation in the autumn.

We have been reassured that the damage threshold is about ensuring that properties that are presented for redress are triaged so that those that are in the worse state of decline and decay are dealt with first while those that are in a better state are dealt with further down the line. I do not believe anyone has suggested it is a means of excluding people. The regulation will deal with the parameters of the threshold, which is welcome.

I have a final point that needs to be central to everything. Several months ago, this whole case was brought to the Attorney General. There are huge quarries and concrete block manufacturers still operating and trading very healthily. The CRH company, Roadstone, one of the largest companies in the concrete block industry in Europe, trades in Bunratty in my own constituency of Clare. It is imperative that Roadstone, Cassidy Brothers and any other company that has sold defective concrete blocks be brought before the courts and make a payment to the State so that this does not all fall to the public coffers.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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This amendment goes to the crux of all of the issues around this Bill and what is happening in connection with it. Unfortunately, I believe this Bill is an attempt to save the State money. That is what it is all about. This sets that out. The Government's original definition of a "dwelling" is that it "means a house and does not include an apartment, maisonette or duplex". Is it that people do not live in these premises, do not own them and do not need to get them fixed and maintained? This is about saving money. It is very short-sighted and will end up costing the State an awful lot more. By the time this whole issue is dealt with, it will have cost an awful lot more than the Minister hopes it will if he does this. This legislation will probably go through today without any real changes and it will have to be revisited at a later stage. The Minister or whoever is in his role at that time will have to do that because this legislation is not fit for purpose. It does not deal with the issues facing the people of this State. We are responsible for ensuring they can live properly and live well. I was interested to hear the suggestion that the quarries should be held responsible. They should be held responsible but ultimate responsibility for this problem lies with this House. That is the reality of the situation. It was this House that introduced self-certification and removed the requirement for external certification. This House and the politicians within it did that. We did that in the name of the Irish people and we should now put our hands up and make it right. We should do so properly because this Bill will only have to revisited.

Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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I will speak very briefly on this. I will talk about the rights of the people who have been hardest hit by this issue. I will also talk about the rights of the taxpayers. On the issue of the people who live in the homes affected by mica, I will put on record that I believe it is a disgrace that this is being rammed through, that there has not been adequate time for debate and that the Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage was not convened today to discuss the situation. The Bill does not extend to the issue of foundations. The review on the issue of foundations will be returned in a year's time and only then will a decision be made on whether to include them, even though there is no guarantee that the grant cap will be increased to facilitate this.

In the meantime, what are homeowners to do? They either have to wait or they have to rebuild on suspect foundations, unless they have a huge sum of money they can bring into the equation. That is wrong and unfair. It adds insult to injury for the people who have suffered in this situation.

On the issue of the taxpayer, I listened to the point some of the Fianna Fáil Deputies made. There is no question that this is a big hit to the taxpayer. Perhaps Deputies should reflect on the years and years of light-touch regulation overseen and facilitated by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael led Governments, which led to this issue the first time. Why are the insurance companies not paying now? Why are the banks that are mortgaging the homes not paying now? What about the construction industry and the developers that profited from this, not to mention the quarries that supplied the blocks in the first place? There is no point talking about mañana. These measures should be implemented now to defend the interests of the taxpayers on the basis of justice for the mica homeowners, justice that is being denied by the Minister and the Government through the scandalous way this debate is being organised.

Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent)
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I join with previous speakers in questioning the manner in which this legislation is being put through. I appreciate that Bills have to be passed but we spend so much time on statements and now we have two hours to debate this. I understand the Government needs to save money and I understand the Opposition cannot put forward an amendment that costs money. We all accept that. It is in the Constitution; we have no choice but to accept it. What I do not understand is why the Government would remove the possibility of building a smaller house. The money people will get is already set out in the legislation and nobody is looking to tinker with that. We want to remove the provision that requires people to build a house of the same size, not get them more money. How would that cost money and therefore be ruled out of order? The reality is all the homeowners, those who are here and those who are not, have a similar concern, that is, that the money they will get per square metre will not cover the cost of the works. There are going to have to dig into their own money. Some people have that money but many of them will not. I know people in my constituency who have paid back their mortgages and worked all their lives. They are pensioners now. They are not going to get a mortgage to redo the works. Who is going to give a pensioner a mortgage? That is not how banks operate in this State. If they do not get the total amount of what it will cost to remedy the damage or rebuild the house, and they are only getting 80% of the cost, they should be able to build a house that is 80% of the size of the previous one. They might decide they cannot afford the house they spent all their lives working towards but they can afford a slightly smaller house thanks to the generosity of the Minister, the taxpayer or whatever. This legislation states they cannot even do that. They will be caught between a rock and a hard place. Deputy Pringle and I sought to remove that provision and the amendment was ruled out of order. We have a right to know why that is. They have a right to know why it was adjudicated by somebody to be out of order. I would like the Minister to explain how this would have cost the State more money.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I do not rule on amendments.

Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent)
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No, but the Minister might be able to explain how it would cost the State more money. The amendment was ruled out on the basis that it would cost the State money. Somebody somewhere thinks it would cost the State more money if we stopped people building a smaller house. The same amount of money would be made available to them but they would build a smaller house with it. It would be cheaper to heat and perhaps better insulated, which may be more in line with what the Minister's Government colleagues in the Green Party might advocate. That is not allowed under this scheme on the basis that it would cost more money. I ask the Minister to explain that. I am not asking why he ruled it out of order because he did not. Nobody is saying he did. I completely accept his bona fides that he did not do that but somebody somewhere in the apparatus of State, in one of the offices around here, thinks this is going to cost the State more money. Someone put that in their head. There is interaction between Departments and Dáil Éireann on what is ruled in or ruled out with regard to objections. I want to know how it will cost the State more money if people take the same amount of money and build a smaller house. The only way it could cost the State more money is if this is being put in to deliberately stop people who do not have the cash on hand themselves to add to the money. In fairness to the Minister, I do not think that is the case. I hope it is not because that would be indecent. I want an explanation as to how it is going to cost the State more money.

I completely agree with my constituency colleague on the need to pursue those who made and sold these defective concrete blocks for money and large profits. I have a number of amendments on this matter but the reality is they will not be reached. People talk out of both sides of the mouth a lot, and increasingly in this Dáil. They think because they voted to guillotine a Bill they will not have to vote down amendments making it more likely that quarry owners who sold defective concrete blocks would be pursued. They say they would have supported them if we had the time but, of course, they voted to make sure we did not have the time because they might have fallen out with their Government colleagues over it. That is really talking out of both sides of your mouth. It is disingenuous and it is offensive at this stage. I am in favour of this amendment but I have a lot of reservations about democracy and where it is going if this is how we make Bills.

Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent)
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I thank all the groups from Donegal, Sligo, Mayo, Clare and Limerick. If the Minister looks up he will see that the Gallery is full. It is a long time since we have seen it as full as that. I hope he takes heed of that and of the amount of work those people have put in. I also thank my colleagues on the housing committee, who have spent long hours debating this legislation with the Minister's Department. I am disgusted that the Department was too afraid to sit down with me and my colleagues for another six hours to have a proper debate on the real housing costs for the people in the Gallery and all the people in this country.

The amendments I submitted were ruled out of order on the basis of a cost to the Exchequer. I will touch very vaguely on one of them, around foundations. In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, concrete foundations were put in at a maximum of 20 Newtons. At the time, if someone did not have the proper machinery, the lorry driver could add an extra drop of water, which would reduce the foundations to 15 Newtons. Today, any foundations are put in at 30 Newtons. The Minister wants us to rebuild houses on foundations that are 10 or 15 Newtons less than what is being put in at the moment by competent engineers around this country. That is what the Minister is telling these people. He is saying we should rebuild on top of something that is completely out of context from the point of view of strength and what engineers are asking us to put in. That is what the Minister is asking us to do. That will not save the Exchequer money because in a number of years the foundations he has asked people to build on will probably be structurally unsound because of all the interference and the structural work that will have to be done on top of them. What are we going to do - go back and rebuild them?

I have asked for core testing to be done before any retrofitting is done to any property in this country, to ensure we have a full prognosis on the number of houses suffering from pyrite. Again, that amendment has been ruled out of order. It is common sense to spend about €1,500 on core testing houses to save the Exchequer money into the future, rather than retrofitting the houses and having to knock them afterwards. The Government spending more taxpayer's money on retrofitting houses and then having to knock them down is not cost-effective. Testing foundations costs €5,000 at the moment. To replace the foundation costs about €8,000. Common sense says we should get them tested and remove the foundations, otherwise it will turn into €13,000.

The Minister should look up at these people in the Gallery and remember them because they have relations all around the country. It is not only the people with pyrite who are affected but every family. All I can do is voice my disgust that the Department would not sit down with the committee, even though we asked it to. We would have stayed day and night to discuss this to make sure it was right but the Department would not take the experience of a building contractor. I have been working on buildings since the late 1980s and I have given the Department my building experience. No one from the Department could answer me on the day we debated this. They could only say that it was not in their remit or that it was somebody else's department. That is all we got, going around in circles. The Department would not take real live common sense and real live building experience from me. I am not sure if I am the only contractor here. I am a blocklayer by trade.

I understand blocks. The Minister would not take advice from the likes of me and my colleagues who have fought for this to make sure we got the right redress for these people, their families and the next generation. Shame on the Minister if he guillotines this without tabling the proper amendments and corrections, which we offered to help him with.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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I will be extremely brief because I am anxious that we get to divisions on the important issues to have them on the record. I have a question for the Minister. The Government just lost its majority as a consequence of the position it has taken on mica and the effective campaigning done by those in the Gallery and across the country. Will the Government draw any conclusions from the fact it has lost its majority? Will the Government avoid doing further damage to the political parties in it by learning these lessons and agreeing to do right by the homeowners?

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I thank colleagues for their contributions. I will deal with a couple of items regarding where we were in June 2020 and where we are now. All Deputies will recognise that there have been major changes to the previous defective blocks scheme. It is important for the House that we set some of those changes out. I thank all the homeowners from all the affected counties for their constructive engagement on a difficult, complex issue. We are committed to making the scheme work for them, which is why we need to ground this scheme in legislation and have it passed by the summer recess. Over the summer recess, we can work through the regulations and get the scheme up and running to be able to help people to get their homes and lives back together.

I fully appreciate Deputies who have tabled amendments and their contributions today, but let us look at where the scheme came from. It was a 90% grant of up to €247,500. It is a 100% grant up to €420,000.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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That is not true.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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That is not true.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I did not interrupt any Deputy.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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The Minister is entitled to be heard. We are speaking to the amendments.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Tuigim é sin. I am saying that a number of matters were raised by this amendment and I would like the opportunity to address some of the points that have been raised, particularly relating to foundations and guarantees of works. I will be brief. I do not want to detain people for longer than they need to be. The grant options have been drastically changed and rightly so. The estimated cost of this revised scheme is €2.7 billion, which is a significant intervention by the State on behalf of residents and homeowners, and rightly so, because there has been a market failure. All of the changes that we have worked through since June 2020, when the consultation began on revising the older scheme, which started in early 2020 and was given a guarded welcome by many but did not operate.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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There is no point of order. The Minister is entitled to speak.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I assure Deputies that I will be brief. A number of points were raised and I will conclude quickly. We have substantially changed the grants, with 100% options all the way through. We have also provided a guaranteed second grant option for non-rebuild remediation if required, with a 40-year guarantee, which is something that residents rightly looked for. It was not there before. It has gone from 20 years to 40 years. We have agreed on the extension of the scheme to other affected counties and have now grounded in national legislation that if other counties are affected, they will also come into the scheme. We have a pathway for that to happen. We have expanded the eligibility past principal private residences, which were covered under the existing east coast scheme for pyrite in the in-fill and foundations, to include second properties registered with the Residential Tenancies Board, for one owner, which did not exist previously. We have an independent appeals mechanism, which is included.

I will conclude on this matter regarding foundations if the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will indulge me for one moment. I said clearly on Second Stage that we need independent scientific research into other materials that may affect foundations. We have established that through the National Standards Authority of Ireland, NSAI, and that work is ongoing. I have been clear with residents and Deputies in the House, on Second Stage, that should it be discovered that other materials, such as pyrrhotite, would have a negative impact on foundations, we will include foundations in the scheme. I said that on Second Stage. Members will know from the joint committee meetings that there were conflicting views on that point. That is why it is important to make sure we are making decisions grounded in scientific advice.

The amendment proposes to have the definition of dwelling prescribed by the Minister in regulations rather than in the Act. The definition of dwelling and, therefore, properties eligible to apply for funding under the grant scheme is a key policy and principle of this scheme. We are looking at other matters such as apartments and homes that may be co-homes, which I am sure we will be able to deal with by way of regulation. I am sure we will be able to do that. There are complexities relating to apartment buildings in particular that need to be worked through. While we can disagree on points, Deputies need to recognise that there have been major advances from the original scheme to now provide 100% redress for families. It is not just for their homes but also for rental homes. There is a 40-year guarantee and a second grant option too. We will work through the regulations over the summer to make sure that we establish a scheme which is fit for purpose. Residents can apply for it and anyone who is in the existing scheme will derive the benefit of the new enhanced rates that we have fought hard for. I will not accept the amendment.