Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The raw and human impact of the housing crisis was laid bare in heartbreaking fashion on RTÉ last night. With great courage and dignity, Graham King told how he and his family live in a tent. They have nowhere else to go. His wife, Patricia, and his two children, Grayson and Priya, stay in the tent. He stays in the car. They live day to day. Graham said:

I’m on disability and half carer's. My wife works. We have to run a car and feed kids. The expenses add up.

Speaking about the conditions in the tent and how his children are coping, he said:

It was a game at first. It’s not so much anymore. The last couple of nights haven’t been good. Wind, rain - that type of weather has already destroyed one tent. This one is holding up, but I don’t know how long it will last. I haven't got much sleep because I still have to be looking after the tent when the rest of them are sleeping in it.

About his children, he said, "[The children] know they're homeless but they don't know the meaning of what that entails" and that they cope by occupying themselves. There are playgrounds nearby and a walkway, and they feed the ducks,

For more than a decade, Governments have been telling people that they will fix housing, yet here we are with a father on national television telling his family's story of living in a tent in Ireland in 2022. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, had no answers for Graham. He and his family are still in that tent today. It is day 53 for them. Incredibly, the family have been told that they earn too much to qualify for State housing support. I have no doubt that viewers last night were looking on with a sense of, "There but for the grace of God go I", a feeling that this could happen to anyone, especially in light of extortionate rents, record levels of homelessness and a maxed out emergency accommodation system. Last Wednesday, in Dublin 7 in my constituency, for example, all emergency shelters bar one were full.

When a working family, a family trying to do everything right, ends up living in a tent, it is surely a sign that the system is broken beyond recognition. For months, Sinn Féin and others have been calling on the Government to introduce a winter eviction ban to halt the flow of people into homelessness. I welcome the fact that it seems the Government has finally listened and will proceed with a ban. It is a first step. This measure must coincide with an accelerated delivery of affordable homes, tackling crisis rents, increasing income thresholds for social housing and an urgent plan to bring vacant homes into use. In the here and now, though, we must ensure that the eviction ban is done right. Cuirim fáilte roimh an gcosc geimhridh ar dhíshealbhú mar chéad chéim chun tabhairt faoi ghéarchéim na ndaoine gan dídean. Caithfidh an Rialtas é a fháil i gceart gan aon mhoill. There are concerns that the eviction ban may not be introduced until December. That would be far too late. Such a delay would result in hundreds more adults and children being forced into homelessness but if we work together, we can pass the right legislation very quickly to prevent this from happening. Will the Government do that? Will it ensure that the winter ban on evictions is implemented without any further delay?

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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First, I have said repeatedly in this House - and I stand by my statement - that, in my view, housing is the single most important social issue facing our country at this moment in time and access to housing is fundamental to our security, our stability, our health and our progress as a nation. I do not know the individual circumstances in relation to Graham King and his family. I do not know the full background of the housing that they might have had prior to this, but it is not acceptable that a family would be living in a tent.

Equally, though, we need sustained action on housing. The Housing for All plan is the only substantive plan I have seen over the past 12 months - it is only a year old - that deals across the board with a whole range of issues to do with housing. That has been backed up by significant legislation passed in this House, which at times the Deputy's party opposed in vociferously arguing against the retention of the help-to-buy scheme, the first home scheme or affordable housing. Eventually, when it came to the vote, Sinn Féin voted some of that through.

I see no alternatives to the key measures we are taking on social homes. We will have a record number this year in terms of social houses compared with recent times. The key issue for us will be to deliver more houses than the approximately 25,000 that will be delivered this year, which is on target with what we have identified. The Government has been in office for just over two years, we have had two lockdowns as a result of Covid and we have had an exponential increase in building costs, the cost of materials and so on because of the war in Ukraine and the bounceback. Nonetheless, we still have a situation where we have the highest housing delivery now since 2008, the highest commencements on record, the highest planning permissions since 2007, the highest number of first-time buyers since 2007 and the highest number of home buyers since 2008.

However, that is not enough. We are having an impact, but we need to build more than those 25,000 houses. We need to get to 35,000 houses being built, and this means creating the pipeline that can sustain this right through the next number of years. This is something the Government is very focused on. This year, in respect of social houses, builds and so on, between approved social housing bodies and local authorities, we will have thousands of new social homes built. This is the reality. It will be much higher than previous years because a lot work has gone into this in previous years, which has led us to the stage where we are now building far more social houses for a long, long time. This will have an impact, but it does take time. The Housing for All policy is more than a year old.

To make one final point in this regard, the Deputy mentioned her own constituency. For her own reasons, she has decided to oppose a proposal in Clonliffe. I think more than 1,000 homes were to be provided in the context of that planning application. The Deputy may have a good reason. I acknowledge that everybody can find good reason. Equally, however, if we are all possessed with the urgency of this issue today, and the crisis in housing, do we really have the luxury of opposing projects of this kind?. The Housing for All strategy refers to 33,000 houses, but I think we have to get to 35,000 homes being built annually. Collectively, we must get to 35,000 houses being built per annum and I would just query that.

On the eviction decision, if we can get this legislation through the House, it can take effect from the beginning of November. Again, we are in extremisconcerning the situation with the war in Ukraine. More than 50,000 Ukrainians have now come into the country, and far more will access the international protection accommodation service, IPAS. We also have the emergency housing situation. We are, therefore, in unprecedented circumstances. In that context, the Government's decision this morning on the eviction ban is positive and necessary.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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There is no disputing that the housing crisis is the single biggest social crisis we face. It is also true that it is the single biggest failure of the Government and its predecessors. The alternative, of course, to being evicted is not being evicted. The alternative to being homeless is to have a roof over one's head. These are the only alternatives at this stage that I believe the Taoiseach and his Government need to understand. The Government has moved on the matter of a ban on evictions. The Taoiseach said it will bring it forward with all due haste. We are anxious to assist the Government in doing this. I suggest we get this work done this week. Let us get this done this week. The Government should publish the legislation, work constructively with the Opposition and let us get this done this week, because families are desperate and terrified at the prospect of losing their rented home as we speak and meet here. We have a duty to protect those families. Let us, therefore, do this as a collective effort. Will the Taoiseach agree that we should get this work done this week? Let us do this week and have no more delays.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I thank Deputy McDonald. We are over time.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Since July, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has given authority to the local authorities to purchase-----

Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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He has not.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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-----houses where a tenantin situ, whether under the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, or the housing assistance payment, HAP, was on the cusp of being evicted. Since this measure was introduced, close to 650 houses have been bought or are in the process of being bought by local authorities. That is a significant intervention. Every mechanism the Minister can use to avoid homelessness is being used. That needs to be said. That has happened. He has given the freedom of manoeuvre to the local authorities to buy those houses. Up to 650 houses have been bought or are in the process of being bought, and this is in addition to the wide range of supports that are also provided in a bid to prevent evictions.

Turning to the legislation that the Minister will introduce, today is Tuesday and I respectfully suggest that if we brought something in right now and said that we were going to get it rammed through by Wednesday, then all the Deputies opposite would oppose it and say this was shocking.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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No, we would not.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Not on this one; it is too urgent.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputies would, absolutely. It would be condemned as guillotining and all the rest of it. Anyway, 1 November is the date the Minister is targeting. I will take up the offer made by Deputy McDonald. The legislation will be published and we will work with the Opposition to get it through as quickly as possible.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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We welcome the Government's U-turn on the winter eviction ban and the announcement earlier. It represents a real change since Thursday when I questioned the Tánaiste on it then. His response was rather lukewarm on the prospect of a temporary eviction ban. We welcome it but we have to remember that for nearly 11,000 individuals and 3,220 children who are homeless and without a secure home that ban will come too late. These figures will only continue to grow after the eviction ban has concluded unless the core problem of a lack of social and affordable homes is addressed because all of us know of so many families who are terrified of being evicted, who are in fear of being evicted or who have just been evicted.

All morning we heard loud and clear the voice of property owners objecting to this ban but we have not directly heard the voices of those affected. One man from my constituency contacted me and he tells me that he is in fear of imminent eviction, he has already been given a notice to quit in the spring and even with a substantial income available to him, he cannot locate an alternative property. He said that one rental property had 700 applications and another had more than 500. He said that any type of extension to his eviction would be welcome as he needs time to locate a new place to live for his family of three. For individuals in that circumstance, including people who are working and people whose incomes may have been sufficient years ago to afford a reasonable rent, a supply of homes is no longer available. There is clearly a serious housing shortage for those on lower incomes and the winter eviction ban, while welcome, does not address that issue.

As my colleague, our housing spokesperson, Senator Moynihan, said, there are three key measures we are calling on Government to implement to address the issues that will continue to arise for those families in fear of homelessness in the spring, after the ban has been lifted. First, we are asking Government to rapidly expand the tenant in situscheme. I am glad that so many houses have been or are in the process of being bought by local authorities; I think the Taoiseach mentioned a figure in excess of 600. However, we need to see a consistent approach across local authorities and to see the five or six months the eviction ban is in place used to ensure that local authorities will map out housing need and identify those households at risk of homelessness. Then the Government should provide councils with the necessary resources to cut through the red tape surrounding the tenant in situ scheme and ensure we can return houses, many of which were originally council houses, to social housing stock and provide more sustainable futures for those renting. Second, the Government needs to invest in building more social homes and to ensure targets are met for that. Third, the Government needs to take on the Residential Tenancies (Tenants' Rights) Bill 2021 Bill that Labour introduced a year ago but which has still has not been progressed and which would have, if adopted by Government, provided much greater security for renters across the country. In my constituency there are twice as many households as the national average in rental accommodation. Many people are relying on the mercy of landlords and they need to have a more stable and secure future.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising the issue, which is more specific to the issue of the winter eviction ban. The residential tenancies (deferment of termination dates of certain tenancies) Bill 2022 was approved by Government this morning and will be published shortly. The Bill gives greater security of tenure to tenants during the coming winter period. Specifically, the Bill will defer certain notices of termination served on tenants for the period on the day after the date of the passing of this legislation and ending on 31 March 2023.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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That is not good.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Bill proposes to stagger the end of the protections afforded in it to ensure there is no cliff-edge impact on 1 April next year. Importantly, the Bill applies to licences and tenancies in student-specific accommodation and to student tenancies in the general rental market. The Bill is required, as I said earlier, due to the ongoing acute supply constraints in the residential rental sector and the increase in homelessness presentations over the winter. We want to reduce the burden on homelessness services and the pressure on tenants and the residential tenancy market generally. The Bill is also designed to mitigate moral hazard insofar as the protection will not extend to a tenant who simply chooses not to pay his or her rent or to breach other tenant obligations.

We brought in a similar ban during Covid so it is not the first time we have done this. There is a context for it, which there has to be, and we are in the middle of a serious energy crisis with an exponential increase in pricing. There has also been a huge migration flow because of conflict in the world, particularly the war in Ukraine.

All of this is creating pressures on residential accommodation more generally and on the availability of emergency accommodation that the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage can rely on to house people who suddenly become homeless for a variety of reasons. That is the context for the intervention. There has to be balance to it.

Deputy Bacik referenced the in situscheme the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, introduced last July, where essentially he said to local authority managers they were free to buy houses if somebody is being evicted because a property is being sold. As I said, close to 650 properties have been purchased or are in the process of being purchased by local authorities as a result of that. That tenants in situare at risk of being evicted is a significant issue in itself. I take the Deputy's point. We are open to ensuring we can intervene to prevent evictions of this kind. It is a new departure in respect of local authority discretion. We are urging local authorities to do this. Deputy Bacik has called for greater consistency. The Minister is working on this in his communication.

The Minister has met representatives from the homelessness sector, the NGO sector, the Irish Property Owners Association, the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers, the Residential Tenancies Board and the Dublin Region Homeless Executive to get a proper sense of the situation from their perspective and how they see this Bill.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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It is welcome to hear more detail of the proposed Bill. We will work with the Government, as will all in the Opposition, to ensure it is passed as soon as possible to see protections for those renting through the winter. Will the Taoiseach also commit to introducing stronger legislative backing for the tenant in situscheme? The problems are the red tape, the inconsistency and the fact that last year the State spent €893 million on subsidies to private landlords, such as the HAP. This is money that could have been better spent by being invested in returning housing to social housing stock. Many of the homes that were previously council homes went into private ownership and are now in the private rental sector. We need to see these homes being brought back into social housing. We could strengthen the tenant in situscheme by, for example, requiring that if landlords want to evict a tenant in order to sell they must notify the local authority first and give it a right to purchase. This is the type of provision that would make the tenant in situ scheme much more meaningful and effective in protecting families from homelessness and ensure we have a more sustainable housing system in future for those on low incomes and those in the squeezed middle who can no longer afford spiralling rents.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The HAP scheme and the RAS have been there for a long time. If we did not spend the money on the HAP, there would be far more people homeless. It is not a simple matter of saying we should get rid of HAP and start building.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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I did not say that.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I know. I am articulating a basic principle around this. We will build more houses and more social homes, as we are doing and will be doing consistently. I have seen no mechanism from any other party. Some parties say we should be building 20,000 social homes. There is no capacity at present to build 20,000 social homes. It is not there. We all need to be honest. It is all good for Deputies to go on television and radio and state they think there should be 20,000. They write a paragraph and it is a policy that we should have 20,000 instead of 10,000. That is not a policy.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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We are putting forward sensible proposals.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am making this point generally. This is what gets said. To deal with the HAP-----

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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The Taoiseach might address the Deputy's question.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am doing so. I am speaking about the HAP. The only way to deal with it is to build more social houses but that will be over time. As we build more social houses, we will reduce our reliance on the HAP and the RAS.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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Let us strengthen the tenant in situ scheme.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is what the Government is doing. That is what we are committed to doing. We will work with the Opposition on any constructive proposal it has on this issue and on the Bill that will come before the House in the next while.

Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent)
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The announcement last Friday regarding the proposed ring road for Galway city whereby An Bord Pleanála stated it will not contest the judicial review of the project is devastating news for the people of Galway. Some national media outlets are reporting the project is now dead in the water. I note the matter is still before the courts and a judge has to make a determination. It is important that we respect the judicial process. The reason I raise this in the Dáil is to ask why it takes so long for a project of this magnitude to go through the planning process. As I stated previously, I was elected to Galway County Council in June 1999. The first project before us at the time was to provide a Galway city outer bypass, as it was called then.

A total of €14.7 million was spent on the initial Galway city outer bypass plan before the project was abandoned after a European court ruling in 2013. Two years after that, Arup was appointed to come up with a new proposal, which was called the N6 Galway city ring road. The outlay to date on the current Galway city ring road project is more than €21.3 million. This means more than €35 million has been spent so far on finding a solution that seems no closer now than it ever was. Technically, we are back to square one after 23 years.

The Taoiseach was in Galway last Friday for a number of engagements and he heard about the importance of the road for inward investment. I was at one such function where this was mentioned. The Taoiseach saw at first hand the chronic traffic the people of Galway city and county deal with on a daily basis. Why does it take so long for these major infrastructural projects to get through the planning process?

An Bord Pleanála has serious questions to answer about why, as it publicly stated, it did not consider the new climate action plan that was passed before this decision was made. The people of Galway will now have to endure chronic traffic congestion for many years to come while we try to find a solution to the traffic situation in Galway. After 23 years and with €35 million spent, what comfort can the Taoiseach give to the people of Galway that this never-ending saga will be brought to an end?

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I understand the genuine disappointment with the latest developments in this project. I was in Galway on Friday and all the engagements regarding the economic development of Galway, including the expansion of Genesys, the expansion of the Galway Technology Centre and the launch of the Irish clinical academic training programme, were very positive. Many people see the N6 Galway city ring road as being essential for the growth and development of Galway, while others disagree. However, with the current number of vehicles on the existing network, Galway is suffering extreme congestion in the city centre and increased journey times, as I have experienced myself. The ring road has the potential to reroute traffic from the city and alleviate capacity constraints. Galway city and county councils issued a joint statement with Transport Infrastructure Ireland on Friday in which they indicated that they are confident the issues can be resolved and, as a result, they intend to continue to progress to the delivery of the road project.

The Galway city ring road is a proposed project to construct an orbital route around Galway from the N6 to the west of Barna, including a new bridge crossing over the River Corrib. The project is a component of the Galway transport strategy. The scheme was submitted to An Bord Pleanála and was approved by the board with conditions on 6 December 2021. Subsequently, three applications for judicial reviews were submitted to the High Court, which imposed a stay on progressing the scheme. An Bord Pleanála has taken the decision not to oppose the judicial review taken by Friends of the Irish Environment against the decision to grant planning permission for the Galway city ring road. The decision on whether to grant an order to quash the 6 December 2021 decision of the board lies with the High Court. An Bord Pleanála has stated it took this decision on the grounds that it did not consider the Government's 2021 climate action plan before deciding to grant permission. The next step will be for all parties to consider their positions in light of this development. There will then be an opportunity to request that the High Court remit the scheme back to An Bord Pleanála. Should the scheme be remitted to An Bord Pleanála, the board will consider whether further information is required to aid its deliberations.

The review of planning legislation is progressing in line with the timeline set out by the Office of the Attorney General, which is leading on the project, and there is extensive engagement with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage on it. The work of the review is now moving to the drafting stage. A Bill is expected to be brought to the Government and published by the end of the year. It would be premature to comment on any potential outcomes of the review until it is complete, but one of its key aims will be to put plan-making at the centre of the planning system. It will also focus on bringing increased clarity and streamlining to planning legislation and improving the functioning of the planning system for both practitioners and the general public, given that it is 20 years since its enactment. Public participation, which is a hallmark of the current planning system, will remain a central component of the planning system in the updated legislation.

Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent)
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When the plan for the N6 Galway ring road was first published in 2016, it was proposed that 54 houses be demolished or bought out to facilitate the project if it got the go-ahead. For the past seven and half years, 54 families have been prisoners in their homes. They cannot sell their properties because who would buy a house where there is a proposal to demolish it? There is little point in spending money on improvements. The families were told to sit and wait for seven and a half years. Over the past few years, I have met many of these families who wanted to downsize but could not sell their homes.

Any new planning laws that are brought forward to fast-track major infrastructure projects must take into account family homes due to be demolished. People cannot be left in limbo for years on end. If new planning laws are brought forward, will they include provisions to ensure that homeowners directly affected by any major infrastructural projects will not be prisoners in their houses for years while such projects go through the planning process?

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is difficult. The agencies involved, and all State agencies, have to be very conscious of the predicament families find themselves in when someone makes a declaration that a house will be purchased via CPO or taken over. It causes genuine stress and anxiety. It can also put people into a state of limbo for many years whereby they are not in a position to do anything. That is not satisfactory.

The wider issue is the need to streamline our planning. Day after day, people talk about the crisis in housing and getting infrastructure projects through. The public transport system takes an inordinately long time in terms of getting railway orders and all of that. Offshore wind will be the next big agenda. We are in the middle of an energy crisis. We are trying to get out of fossil fuels as quickly as we can and reduce our dependency on them. The only effective way of reducing our dependency on fossil fuels is offshore wind, on top of onshore wind.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The wind does not blow all the time.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is the only way we can do it. At the moment, Europe is saying it takes an average of eight years from concept to a wind farm being in position. There has to be an overall public good that triumphs over our individual perspectives and considerations. We have not achieved consensus in this House or society more generally, if we are honest.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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The Mica Action Group has been in existence since 2014. I want the Taoiseach to reflect on that for a minute. A group of individuals and families whose homes were crumbling were forced to join together in order to raise awareness about this devastating and extremely dangerous situation, after being ignored and essentially abandoned by the Government. The last eight years have brought nothing but stress and heartbreak to this group. After its pleas fell on deaf ears, it became expert on mica and defective blocks. It gathered its own evidence and carried out testing.

I cannot understand why the Government continues to ignore the Mica Action Group and homeowners of defective properties in Donegal and across the country. We were told this time last year by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, that we would see a scheme before Christmas 2021. He waited almost an entire term to then rush legislation through at the last minute before the summer break and allow for very little scrutiny. We were told by the Minister that he would not engage in pre-legislative scrutiny for the revised scheme as the priority was to rebuild effective houses urgently. However, we are now coming to the end of October and the scheme is still not in place. I am not sure if we will see it before Christmas this year.

The Mica Action Group released another letter to the Minister yesterday, which I would like to bring to the attention of the House. It is very important we all know what is really going on on the ground in Donegal. Part of the letter reads:

Homeowners are becoming collateral damage. Their exposure to physical and psychological hazards is being unnecessarily prolonged due to the intransigent, unempathetic and lackadaisical way in which all aspects of the current revised scheme are being handled. The contrast between government rhetoric and the reality experienced ... in Donegal could not be starker.

The Government can come into the Chamber and talk all it likes about how its priority is to rebuild houses, but the reality is that since the launch of the scheme two years ago, only 14 houses have been rebuilt. It is very clear that the Government's priorities do not lie with affected homeowners. Not only that, it is clear that the Government is actually trying to shift the blame away from it and light-touch regulation and onto homeowners. This is shown through the recent concrete levy, for which it has blamed homeowners in a pathetic attempt to divide the public and isolate affected homeowners who had no control over what happened to them.

The truth is that the Government would rather have members of the public turn against each other before admitting it was Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil policies that have created the mica crisis and the current housing crisis.

We are already paying for defective blocks. If the Government wants to put a levy on the concrete industry, why not tax the profits the industry makes? That would at least make it look as though the Government wants to attempt to make the people who are responsible for this crisis pay for it. How long will the Taoiseach leave Donegal homeowners in limbo without any solution?

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We need honesty in the debate.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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Let us have honesty.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is not two years ago. This is a new scheme that was introduced, as the Deputy has just said, via legislation in this House. It is a new scheme because homeowners and representative groups did not believe the previous scheme, which was welcomed by the Deputies in the House at the time, went far enough. We met residents and representative groups and dramatically improved the scheme with regard to issues around giving financial assistance for all of the pre-costs such as engineering costs and dealing with the rental issue.

I met the representative body well over a year ago and we dealt with all of those issues and that should be acknowledged. There is no point in creating this sort of narrative that the Government is out to get people or undermine them. The Deputy used a terrible phrase when he said the Government was blaming homeowners for the levy. That is a shocking thing to say because it is not what Government is doing. The Deputy should know that because the Government has, at this stage, signed off on approximately €2.8 billion for the mica scheme. It has been signed off and provided for now in the finances. That is not rhetoric. It is financial provision.

The issue is delivery and getting the houses that need urgent remediation or demolition and reconstruction done. The regulations and guidance documents are being worked on by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in consultation with the relevant stakeholders, because people want to be involved all along the way in how this scheme will be shaped, designed and progressed. It cannot be a case of the Department issuing edicts on this and we have further responses that delay it even further. The ambition is to roll out the new scheme before the end of this year or, at worst, in early 2023.

I continue to put pressure on to see whether we can get this done as quickly as we can while involving all stakeholders because, as far as I am concerned, the houses that are most damaged should be done very quickly. We will get a sense of timelines over the next years. Much depends on the acuity of the situation. Some houses are in a very bad way. We want those houses replaced. There is nothing I and the entire Government want to see more than houses being demolished and built, where that is required. I understand there are approximately 300 in that bracket at the moment, with a further 300 coming on-stream. It is doable.

The concrete levy was basically that the Government had decided on expenditure of approximately between €4.5 billion and potentially €6 billion into the future involving pyrite, mica and apartment defects, just like the insurance levy of yesteryear when issues arose with the insurance industry. The mechanism has been used before but it also shows that we have revenue streams to match very significant Government expenditure. That is the only agenda there which, in the light of what is going on globally with the volatility of markets and all that, has a ring of credibility to it.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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The levy the Government is proposing means that people will have to pay twice because they will be paying through general taxation for the renewal of this scheme and the levy will be imposed on people who want to build and need to provide houses for themselves. Why not impose a levy on the profits of the building and construction companies and banks? Why not go after them? The Government has not bothered-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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It is the same with cows.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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-----because it is easier to go after the individuals in the houses. It seems as though this levy is being put on the companies but it is not. It is a levy on the cost of building a house. The Government should at least try to make it look as if it is going after the profits of the company.

The Taoiseach may say he wants to make this scheme right and there may be €2.8 billion written off for this but not one penny has been spent and there is nothing happening. The 300 or 400 houses the Taoiseach says need to be addressed are unfortunately the tip of the iceberg. It will be thousands of houses.

Where are people going to live while their houses are being done? Even if we attempt to do 50 houses per year in Donegal, where are those 50 families going to go? There is nowhere. What is the Government doing to put in place temporary accommodation for those people? That should all be going along now. We should not be arriving in January and deciding we need this. That would lead to a delay of another year or more, which would be wrong. People see this all the time. They live and breathe this whole mica crisis. They know exactly what is happening there. They know what can be done. If the Government would talk to them and take that on board, it would make a huge difference.

I suggest that as many people as possible should attend the conference that is due to take place in Atlantic Technological University in Letterkenny on 15 November, when the Mica Action Group will hear from international experts on the impact of deleterious material.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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That is supported by the EU so it should be a key to everybody as to how people can get through this crisis.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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The Deputy has already benefited from extra time because the clock is not functioning.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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It is vitally important that the Government acts now to make it happen.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We are not trying to make it look as if we are going after somebody, which is what the Deputy is saying we should do.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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What did I say?

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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He is saying we should try to make it look like we are going after the industry. That is not what we are at.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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You are going after the people.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We are not trying to make it look like anything.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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You are going after the people. That is what you are doing.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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No, we are not going after the people.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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You are.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I know that there are campaigns, and political representatives will say things to ensure they are in tandem with those campaigns, but the Government has provided €2.8 billion.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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You have not provided anything yet.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Through the Chair, we have provided €2.8 billion to deal with this. That decision has been taken. The money has been bookended and financially provided for in the Government accounts and so on, so that is not rhetoric; it is real. As for the design of the scheme, the guidance documentation is substantial with respect to how the Housing Finance Agency, local authorities and all the various stakeholders engage and make this happen. We want this to happen. However, there have been various representatives all along the way, as the Deputy knows, about amending the scheme, changing it and making it more attractive. That has taken a fair degree of time over the last year.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I thank the Taoiseach.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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What I would say through the Chair is-----

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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We are over time.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I have one final point. No matter how you apply any levy, and regardless of what the Deputy says about profits, nothing stops it from ending up on the very people he is saying would suffer.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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At least the Government would be trying to target-----

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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We are over time.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy knows that too. He must know that.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Tá mé ag bogadh ar aghaidh.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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He must know that is the truth.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Through the Chair please. We are moving on.