Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann: welcomes the publication of the Report of the Working Group to Examine Defects in Housing;

notes that the report:

— estimates up to 100,000 homes could be affected by building defects;

— estimates that the cost of remediating these defects could be as high a €2.5 billion; and

— outlines options for the creation and financing of a redress scheme for those affected;

acknowledges that:

— light touch building control regulations by the Government, and shoddy practice in the construction industry were the cause of these defects; and

— homeowners are not responsible for these defects;

supports homeowners and tenants call for a 100 per cent redress;

recognise the growing frustration amongst homeowners and tenants due to the delay in bringing forward an appropriate redress scheme, given that the current Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O'Brien TD, and the Government have now been in office two and a half years;

regrets that even if the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, announces a building defects scheme in early 2023, based on the experience of the Enhanced Defective Concrete Blocks Grant Scheme, homeowners may be unable to access such a scheme and receive funding for remediation until 2024 at the earliest, due to the slow pace in bringing forward legislation and regulations and the lack of any provision for such a scheme in Budget 2023; and

calls on the Government to establish a redress scheme for all homes impacted by Celtic Tiger era building defects as a matter of urgency; and

agrees that the redress scheme:

— should consider expanding the terms of reference of the Pyrite Resolution Board to ensure the scheme opens in early 2023, with amending legislation where required;

— should operate as an end-to-end scheme, similar to the current Pyrite Resolution Board, rather than a grant scheme;

— should prioritise those developments with the greatest level of fire safety and structural risk;

— should provide interim funding for emergency works and short-term measures, such as fire wardens in advance of a full redress;

— should be retrospective for those forced to pay for remediation of defects in advance of the opening of the scheme; and

— must also include social landlords, including local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies.

I welcome the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to the House. I also welcome to the Public Gallery residents, owners and tenants who live in defective buildings in a number of developments across Dublin city, in Parkwest, Hunters Wood, the Metropolitan apartments and Hyde Square on the South Circular Road. I commend the very good work, in some cases over many years, of the Apartment Owners Network of the Construction Defects Alliance and the more recently established Not Our Fault 100% redress campaign.

In fact, it was the good work of the Construction Defects Alliance, supported by many of us in the Opposition, that ensured that the manifestos of the political parties, including the Minister's party, in the previous general election and, subsequently, the programme for Government included a commitment to examine the need for a redress scheme and, more generally, to strengthen building control so that the kinds of scandals seen during the Celtic tiger period never happen again. The Minister knows from the report, Safe as Houses?, produced during his time on the then Joint Committee for Housing, Planning and Local Government and Heritage and from other reports he has commissioned that the cause of building defects is twofold. It is shoddy practice within the industry, which was widespread over many years during the Celtic tiger era, but also the light-touch self-regulation introduced by both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in the 1980s and 1990s, which allowed that shoddy behaviour to take place. The consequence, as the Minister’s independent working group report on defective building shows, is that as many as 100,000 homes could be affected by serious fire safety issues, water ingress, cladding, car parking and other structural defects. I acknowledge the work of the working group. The report is very helpful. I also note the Minister has said he will be bringing a memorandum from his cross-departmental working group of civil servants to Cabinet before the end of the year. I will welcome seeing that.

I stress to the Minister that when I talk to homeowners, as I am sure he also does, there is an enormous frustration that two and a half years into this Government, we still do not have a scheme. We have the promise of a scheme, the details and timeline of which we still do not know. For families, particularly families with children, living in fire safety defective buildings or buildings with other structural defects, the wait is simply too long. It is hard to understand why it has taken so long.

The reason we tabled this motion tonight is to stress in the strongest possible terms that homeowners in many thousands of developments throughout the country, in Belmayne, Beacon South Quarter, Brú na Sionna in County Clare and in the Minister's constituency, many of whom are in the Gallery, need a scheme now. As I have said before, I am concerned that even if the Minister brings a memo to Cabinet before Christmas announcing the broad outline of how he intends to proceed and it takes as long to get it from announcement to opening as the enhanced defective block scheme for the counties affected by pyrite, mica and pyrrhotite is taking, it could be a year or more before a scheme for these homeowners and tenants even opens, let alone before they get any redress. The Minister announced the enhanced defective block scheme a year ago last week and the legislation passed through the Oireachtas over the summer. The regulations are still not complete, however, and we do not expect them to be ready until next year. The local authorities will then have to set up the scheme. There is no significant additional budgetary provision for this year compared with last year. In fact, I have just come from a meeting of the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage at which the National Standards Authority of Ireland, NSAI, told us that its review of the statutory instrument underpinning that scheme will not have been completed until 2024. If the same approach is taken for the redress scheme for homeowners with Celtic Tiger era defects, it will be simply too long. For this reason, we need a different approach.

I responded to the Minister’s invitation to set out my party's views this week. My strong view is that we need a scheme similar to the pyrite remediation scheme. It needs to be 100% redress end to end. Given the complexities of owners' management companies, OMCs, and the varied ownerships of units in multi-development schemes, the only way for such a scheme to work is for it to be led by an OMC making a request to a State agency for inspections and agreement of works, and for all of the works to be contracted out by that State agency. How the State then deals with issues such as institutional landlords or landlords who own more than one property can be dealt with. However, for owners whose defective apartment is their principal private dwelling, tenancies that are social tenancies and landlords with a single property, there needs to be up-front 100% redress provided through such a Stage agency. I know the Minister does not agree with the suggestion I made before but that may be because he does not fully understand it. While I accept there will be a need for underpinning legislation for a new scheme, the Minister could take the pyrite remediation board, which has an office, staff and expertise, and expand its remit, on an initial non-statutory basis, bring forward the legislation in parallel. That would allow the body to deal with the scheme as it rolls out. It would also allow it to deal with the issue of the provision of emergency funding either to deal with emergency fire safety works that are required now and cannot wait for a scheme or for interim measures. The Minister knows what they are; the Construction Defects Alliance and others have told him. They include additional fire alarms, sprinkler systems and, in some cases, fire wardens.

I stress that this scheme must be retrospective. There are people who have paid thousands of euro and in some cases tens of thousands of euro under duress from insurance companies raising premiums or threatening to withdraw them or on the advice of the fire safety authorities. Those people cannot be left behind. They must be included in any scheme and an element of retrospection is required. We know, for example, that landlords who carry out capital works on properties to improve them can write down the cost in their future tax liability. That approach provides a mechanism to give these homeowners 100% redress.

I will raise two other issues with the Minister. The first is the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, and receivers acting on its behalf. One of the many aspects of this scandal is the appalling way in which NAMA and the receivers engage with OMCs and residents when dealing with defective buildings. Carrickmines Green is one. Brú na Sionna is another. I know NAMA is independent but the Minister for Finance needs to make it clear that the agency needs to take a different approach and work with OMCs and owners to address these issues, not against them.

I urge the Minister to examine the need for a levy on the profits of large companies. Cairn Homes is one of the most profitable companies in the State. Its director was the director of a company that was responsible for Belmayne. It is unconscionable that Cairn Homes is in receipt of significant state aid in planning permissions and making huge profits, none of which are levied to go towards remediating properties, for example, in Belmayne. I am sure the Minister agrees. I ask him to please give us good news today and work with the Opposition. He should tell us when we are going to get a scheme and give the families in the Gallery today and homeowners like them real redress in 2023.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

As the Minister knows, I live in the epicentre of the defective block crisis in County Donegal. I live in Buncrana on the Inishowen Peninsula. People's lives have been utterly destroyed. Hardly anybody my age who has built or bought a home or was living in a council home has not been devastated by the crisis. No matter where people live in Ireland, whether in Dublin and north Leinster in regard to the pyrite scheme, in communities in this city and throughout Ireland that have been affected by defects or a lack of oversight of the building industry and self-certification, self-regulation, no regulation or light-touch regulation, or in the west where there are victims of defective concrete blocks, although as many as 13 or 14 counties could be affected, the State must deliver 100% redress because these people have done nothing wrong. In good faith, these people engaged in the social contract, whereby you get an education or training, get a job, work hard and build a home, you put your trust in the professionals that your home will be tip-top, you pay your mortgage for however many years and you have a home when you are older. That contract was torn up. Deputy Ó Broin and I spent three hours today at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage discussing the issue of quarries and the lack of regulation. My message to the people in the Gallery is that no matter where they are from in Ireland, if they are victims of the utter failure of this State to regulate and hold these people to account, then they need 100% redress. It is as simple as that. That is natural justice. Everybody, no matter where they live, deserves that.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Over the last few days, we have been warned about the severe weather conditions in the days ahead. Temperatures as low as -7°C have been mentioned. We are told not to be afraid to turn on the heating, that the Government will help. Now imagine living in a home affected by pyrite or mica in County Mayo or County Donegal with gaping gaps in the walls.

There is wind and frost coming through where the window frames have detached from the blocks, and they have been looking at this for the last ten winters. Across the State, homeowners and tenants impacted by building defects have to endure another winter. Hundreds of families across Mayo have their lives torn apart by pyrite and the sad thing is that it was totally avoidable. They were the victims of light or no regulation and this was not their fault, so why are we asking them to bear the responsibility for the injustice of pyrite and of defects and for the failure of Government to regulate to protect them? It is as simple as that. Now, there is the failure of Government to recognise the need for 100% redress to replace the homes they paid for.

This is the problem. We met in Westport about ten days ago with all of the homeowners who have been impacted there. They were given the mortgages by Mayo County Council for homes built by a housing body, so it was oversight by all of the Government bodies. What is happening is that many of them cannot afford to get this work done because it is not 100% and they cannot turn 70%, 80% or 90% into 100%. We have to look at the people we are excluding from the scheme. With regard to the foundations, this conversation has to stop and the foundations have to be included in the repairs.

I also want the Minister to talk to the banks. We talked to the banks in the last week about the cap of €500,000 being lifted. I have a letter here from the bank to a homeowner who is impacted by pyrite and who desperately needs some funding to be able to access the scheme. The bank is basically saying no, that there is nothing for the homeowner, there is no equity in the house and it does want to know. There are so many things that need to be fixed in this scheme.

Chris Andrews (Dublin Bay South, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Over many years, many couples have scraped and sacrificed and saved the money they needed to buy their dream home. However, a few years into living in their new home, it has turned into a nightmare because they find their home is not safe to live in. Of course, they cannot sell as they cannot afford the cost of making things right. As has been said, they had no hand, act or part in causing the defects. The people who caused the defects are long gone and the Government wants the residents to pick up the tab for the Government’s light and no-touch regulation. This is what happened in Poolbeg Quay, where the residents had their dream homes turned into a nightmare. The Government needs to step up to the plate and make things right. It needs to commit to a 100% redress scheme.

Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Today, I have again been speaking to residents from The Oaks in County Westmeath and I commend their perseverance, doggedness and determination to see this through. In 2010, the 32 homes had their insurance cancelled due to identified fire and construction defects. A recent minor but problematic flood damaged walls, floors and furniture and none of it was insured. I am told that The Oaks was inspected by the local authority and two notices were served on the developer, followed by a court case in 2010. The judge ruled that the matter was too serious for the District Court. The local authority said it would take six weeks to prepare a case and requested the case be struck out, and it was, but the situation remained. The residents thought that, following a fire in the development in early 2021, the local authority would finally act definitively, but that was not to be and the situation remains still.

The residents of The Oaks have been extremely proactive in attempting to resolve this issue but they have effectively been stonewalled. They do not have a wishlist of outlandish requirements. They want their homes to be safe, to be compliant, to be insurable and to be saleable. As one resident said to me this afternoon:

I am a mother of three, one of whom is autistic. We bought a one-bedroom apartment in 2007. In 2009 we received news about the fire safety issues. We have been renting and paying a mortgage since 2009. We have moved at least ten times. With the rising cost of living, we may have no other option but to move back into that deathtrap. This is a noose around our neck that keeps on tightening.

That light-touch regulation introduced by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, and widespread shoddy practice by the building industry during the Celtic tiger, led to these building defects. This Government and previous Governments have failed to deal with that legacy and the practices they facilitated, yet it is residents like those in The Oaks and those in the Visitors Gallery this evening who are left to face the full impact of the failures of others. That is shameful.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

We are talking about the possibility of upwards of 100,000 homes with building defects. Some of my colleagues have already spoken about the human impact and we have to think of that. I am sure the people in the Visitors Gallery can tell the Minister particular stories. It has already been said in the House how people did absolutely nothing wrong. They went out and bought homes, they thought they were doing the right thing, they got their mortgages and they did everything correctly and then, because of the sins of others, they were left in a shameful situation.

We know a huge number of people have already been put under considerable pressure in regard to delivering their own solutions because it has been forced on them in regard to fire regulations or insurance. That is why we need a proper scheme and Deputy Ó Broin has done a considerable amount of work in this regard. We know the Safe as Houses? report is, to a degree, accepted by the Government and that there needs to be a redress scheme, and we know the working group was set up in 2021. What we really need to see is delivery because, in fairness, these people have waited far too long. We could have had this debate at any time in the last number of years and we would still be saying the same thing. It is far too long.

It happened because of the sins of others. As has been said by almost everyone who spoke, and I imagine it will be repeated almost ad nauseam, the fact is there was little or no regulation. The only place that we can leave that responsibility is with the Government. We need to ensure that we deliver for these people who have done absolutely nothing wrong. What is the alternative? The alternative at one stage, as proposed by the Government in 2016 – I accept it was not the current Minister’s Government - was that these people were personally responsible for this. I commend a significant amount of work done by politicians, but also by residents and by the Construction Defects Alliance, who pushed back in that regard, so we are at least having the correct conversation. The correct conversation is a scheme based on the pyrite resolution scheme and it needs to have 100% redress from end to end.

Deputy Mac Lochlainn and others spoke in regard to the difficulties that exist concerning the defective blocks scheme. That is a case where the Government almost went the journey that was necessary but failed at the final hurdle. We need to ensure that does not happen again. We know that speed is of the essence. Once again, we are in this Chamber and we are talking about failures. We can talk in very general terms about failures but they are not very general terms for the people in the Visitors Gallery, who have been impacted and who are living on a day-by-day basis with houses and homes that are not safe or fit for purpose due to, I repeat, mistakes that others made and that were not their responsibility.

Let us be clear because we have all said it many times before: what people expect of a Government is that it is there to have their back and to ensure that the correct regulations are in play. We need to ensure we can deliver for people so they are safe in the sense that they can go out and buy houses and that all of the necessary due diligence and regulation has been done, and if there are people who have failed to comply with the necessary rules, they are brought to task. Not only do we need this resolution scheme in place, we also need to make sure we root out problems and ensure we have the necessary regulation so this never happens again. It is beyond time. We need to deliver now for these people.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

First, I welcome the residents who are here this evening for this important debate and, indeed, the representatives of the Construction Defects Alliance and the Apartment Owners Network. I welcome the opportunity to debate this. It is important and I am not opposing the motion. There are elements within it that I do not agree with, specifically around the area of the pyrite resolution board, which Deputy Ó Broin and I debated last week.

We need bespoke legislation to underpin this scheme. We cannot fit a square peg in a round hole. The scheme will be with us for many years, unfortunately. Obviously, I will be seeking the co-operation and support of Members opposite when we bring forward that legislation but it is also about what we do in the interim.

To take it back a step, thousands of residents in Dublin Fingal, the area I represent, have been affected by issues such as this - by construction defects or fire defects. I have worked and campaigned on this since the first day I came into the Dáil back in 2007. When Fianna Fáil was in opposition and I was its spokesperson on housing, I called for a scheme to be put in place and for us to work together to help residents not just to put their homes back together, but to put their lives back together. That is why, in the programme for Government negotiations, we sought and received a firm and clear commitment that this nettle of construction defects will be grasped and dealt with once and for all.

We established the working group, which I commend on its work. There is an element of the motion that is probably about political point-scoring but that is fine; I understand it from the position of the Opposition. No one sat on their hands on this issue. We established the working group, made up of residents and other stakeholders, and it did really important work. It set its own terms of reference. Given the importance of its work, I did not pressure it into finishing the report sooner or speeding it up. Some 28,000 homes participated in the survey. For the first time, we have a proper handle on the type of defects, their scale and scope, and the breakdown within that. That was a very important piece of work. I received in the report in July, read it and looked at the recommendations in detail, and then brought it to the Cabinet on 27 September. The report found what many of us present know to be the case - that fire defects are the most prevalent of the defects. It is estimated that between 40% and 70% of the properties are affected by fire defects. Water ingress affected between 20% and 50%, while structural defects, though still very important, affected somewhat fewer, at between 5% and 25%. We now have a handle on the average cost, although some residents are being presented with bills well in excess of that amount. The average cost is approximately €25,000 per unit, which means a potential cost to the Exchequer of between €1.5 billion and €2.5 billion.

I am acutely aware that many residents have already remediated their homes. Approximately 12% to 14% of the properties have been fixed and made safe and approximately 34% of other affected properties are either in the process of being fixed or are planning for that to be done.

There are many elements within this and we need the scheme that is set up to be robust. I have engaged the Housing Agency, which I see playing a central role in the establishment of a scheme. It is already working on the implementation of the recommendations that have been presented. I wish to inform residents, their representatives and the Deputies who are present - this is important - that I intend to bring a further memorandum, setting out the recommendations I will make in that regard, to the Government in advance of the recess. I assure the residents that the Government will help. We will help them to get their homes and lives back together, but we need a robust scheme and it will take a bit of time to bring the legislation forward.

In the meantime, however, as we discussed in the House last week, there will be interim measures we can take, subject to approval, and we should take them. The hundreds, if not thousands, of people right across the country whom I have met in respect of construction defects deserve that response and help from the Government, and they will get it. I assure them of that.

There are other elements within this. It is not just a question of how we structure the scheme; it is about how it will be rolled out and how we categorise the different defects within it, such as in the case of the different apartment blocks and estates that are affected. We will do so using the principle of remediating the worst first. We will then have to deal with the issue of certification. We will need to ensure that when work is done, it is properly certified so that homes can be insured and brought back to their value and, should a homeowner so wish, be resold.

We then have to consider the scope of the scheme. Should it just cover principal private residences? I do not believe so. We should employ the same approach we took with the defective concrete block scheme, under which applicants were permitted to apply to the scheme in respect of an additional property registered with the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB. I am acutely aware that many social homes, such as homes owned by approved housing bodies, also need to be remediated.

As regards the scale of this issue, there are probably up to 100,000 homes that will need to be remediated to varying degrees. The idea that we should just rush forward with some type of sticking plaster approach to this is not one I share. We have to do this in a deliberate and structured fashion that will be robust. This scheme will probably be in place for approximately ten years. That is my estimation of how long it will take to bring these homes and apartments back to where they ought to have been when the residents bought them. The residents have found themselves in this situation through no fault of their own. I agree with the Deputies in that regard.As housing Minister, I have engaged regularly with residents on an individual basis as well as with the Construction Defects Alliance directly and the Apartment Owner Network as recently as this evening. They have been very important to this process and ensuring we move it onwards, get an understanding of the issues and, most important, work towards the implementation of the recommendations.Those recommendations will be subject to Cabinet approval. I assure all present that I want that work to be concluded before the end of the year. The second part of this relates to measures we can implement in the short term, in advance of the legislation passing. The pyrite remediation legislation will not work in this instance. We need separate legislation and regulation. I believe there are measures we can take in a very short space of time, however, particularly in the area of fire defects.

There are two other stakeholders or parts of the sector that also need to be part of the solution. Yes, one of those is the banks, and we have engaged with them. The second is the insurance sector. The excess levels on insurance policies held by residents of some apartment blocks are now set so high that it nearly deems those apartments uninsured. I have engaged directly with Insurance Ireland. We have had a positive engagement there. We need to consider apartment blocks that have already been remediated and what the change in insurance status has been from pre-remediation to post-remediation.

The issue of retrospection has to be considered. It will form part of the memorandum I will bring to the Government. It is a complex issue. We need to make sure works that have been done were carried out by qualified people and certified appropriately. I assure those who have taken the time to come here this evening to listen to this debate that I, as Minister, am absolutely committed to bringing this scheme forward, getting Cabinet approval for it, moving on interim measures that can assist people now, and then moving forward with the legislation to put the scheme on a solid basis from which we can move on.

I will make two final points. I wish to briefly address the issues in respect of defective blocks, which do not form part of the motion but are as important. I will be meeting Donegal County Council again tomorrow. I will be meeting representatives of the Mica Action Group tomorrow. We are seeing more people access the scheme, and that is to be welcomed. The scheme is moving forward. I brought the scheme forward and it was passed by this Dáil. The Government is committed to helping in that space as well. How we structure it and how we start it will be so important. There will be measures we can take forward on an interim basis. It will require redress for residents. There is no question about that. I will continue to make good on the commitment we put into the programme for Government - to grasp this nettle once and for all, make people's homes safe and allow them to get back on with their lives. I campaigned for that in opposition and I am now in a position to do something about it as housing Minister.

I respectfully ask for the co-operation of all Members of the Opposition to make sure we can bring forward that legislation as expeditiously as possible. That is important I welcome the opportunity to debate this matter. I will certainly update colleagues in the Dáil post my bringing that memo to Cabinet at the end of this month.