Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I raise deeply worrying and entirely unacceptable issues for apartment owners and renters who are experiencing them in my constituency of Dublin South-Central. Let me paint a picture for the Minister of State. When I visited some of these apartment blocks, I saw fire safety hazards and potential for flooding. In another apartment block, I saw water coming into people's homes. This was not from a river. They do not know where this water is coming from. It has dripped into their home so much that it is now forming mould behind cupboards that have to be taken off. It is lifting skirting boards. I have been in their homes, and they invited me in to show me what exactly was going on. They have a wonderful area outside, which could be a communal area, but because it so badly damaged by water and the lack of ability to have any remediation, they are not able to use it. After I visited, a few weeks later, part of that apartment building fell apart. The family who live underneath have twins. They are brand new babies. If it had been warm enough to be out, they could have been sitting out underneath that balcony and they would have been seriously injured or worse.

The difficulty is that they are stuck in a situation where they are not able to get this remediation because they do not seem to be able to do it. They have a sinking fund, which is sinking rapidly into things that should be fixed ordinarily. There are developers that still own parts of those apartments. They are not paying money to the owner management company. There are people who own their apartments and they have spent a lot of money on these apartments. I do not know if the Minister of State knows my constituency, but Dublin 8 is an area where properties are very expensive. These properties were bought at the height of the boom and they were incredibly expensive. They are gorgeous, but people are frightened to live there. They are at their wits' end. One of things that I remember from that meeting was that one couple said they hated to hear the sound of dripping because they knew that was when something was going to go bad. In their minds, they hear drip, drip, drip all the time. They have buckets, pans and pots trying to gather the water, but they are emptying them all the time. It is causing them absolute stress. When I met them, what should have been a wonderful place to live in was an extremely stressful place to live in.

Will the Government deliver a comprehensive and fully funded statutory remediation scheme for apartment owners and renters? According to parliamentary records, legislation to establish an apartments and duplex defects remediation scheme is being drafted. The Government has approved in principle such a scheme with the aim of covering 100% of the eligible remediation costs for purpose-built apartments and duplexes constructed between 1991 and 2013, but the scheme seems to be unimplemented. These people living in these apartments are not able to access this. I am not going to name them because that would not be fair, but I am happy to talk to the Minister of State afterwards and give him the names. It is causing them a huge amount of stress. Will the Government provide a clear and publicly published timeline for when this legislation will be passed, when the scheme will be opened and when affected residents can apply? Will the Minister of State guarantee that as part of that scheme no apartment owner or renter will be forced to shoulder the costs of the defects that they now have by ensuring that remediation costs already incurred or levied will be eligible for refund or support under the legacy defects provisions of the scheme?

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy very much for raising this important matter. It gives me the opportunity to update the House on behalf of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The Government fully understands and acknowledges the difficulties that homeowners and residents of many apartments and duplexes are facing and the stress that is caused when defects arise in their properties. The Government is committed to helping those whose lives have been impacted by this issue. As the Deputy is aware and mentioned, the Department is, as a matter of priority, preparing legislation to put in place a statutory remediation scheme for owners of certain apartments affected by fire safety, water ingress and structural defects. This legislation will establish supports for the remediation of these defects in purpose-built apartment buildings, including duplexes, constructed between 1991 and 2013. Given the complexity of the issues, including the significant amount of Exchequer funding that this Government has committed to assisting affected homeowners, sufficient time is required to ensure that the scheme is fit for purpose, provides value for money for taxpayers and contains appropriate oversight and governance measures.

Indeed, good progress has been made with Department officials attending a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage yesterday evening to begin the process of pre-legislative scrutiny. Pending the introduction of the statutory scheme, the interim remediation scheme has been established to provide for funding of emergency fire safety defect works to provide an acceptable level of fire safety in buildings until full remedial works can be completed. This scheme, which is being administered by the Housing Agency on a nationwide basis, is open to applications from apartment owner management companies, OMCs, via the Housing Agency's website. Given their status under the Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011 and the key role they play in management of the apartment sector, OMCs have been identified from an early stage as being an essential ingredient to ensuring the efficient and effective delivery of this remediation scheme. The Housing Agency will oversee the process, ensuring OMCs receive the funding necessary to carry out these remedial works. It will work with the companies through the application process. In addition, an effective advice and information service within the agency has been established to provide support for OMCs. In principle, full funding will be provided for all eligible works necessary to achieve an acceptable level of fire safety in each building. To ensure value for money and good governance regarding Exchequer funding, appropriate terms and conditions will apply to such funding, outlined in the grant agreement.

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I am happy measures are being put in place and the scheme is coming onstream. However, for these people who are living there, the time is now. How much time does the Government need? When can they access this? The difficulty is the communal areas. If people are not paying in and if everyone is not in the OMC, what seems to be happening is that they are not able to access the remedial fund. When that happens, those areas are not being looked after because there is no one able to do it. What happens then for apartment blocks where the OMC is not as strong as it could be? How will it be supported?

I am concerned about the Minister of State's comment that the Government needs to make sure it is value for taxpayers. These people are taxpayers. I will not outline the total, but one woman has paid in a lot of money to make sure that her home is safe for her children, herself and her husband. The reality is that when these apartments were built, building standards were not upheld. This is a problem of a regulation that was never enforced. We have a number of apartment blocks not only in my constituency but around the country, which now have to be sorted out because there was no enforcement. I do not know how this happened. We are supposed to have regulations for everything, and it seems to not have worked. We have fire regulations, but this water ingress is also happening. The people who live there are taxpayers. They are renters or they own their apartments, and they deserve better. I acknowledge the need for value for money, but there is no value for money for the people who live there. They are seriously stressed. I thank the Minister of State for his response. I will keep pressing on this issue because time is of the essence. People spend a lot of time in their homes. This is totally fixable. If homes are dangerous and if they are stressed in their homes, time is of the essence.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Owners and renters deserve better. There is no question that these properties should not have been built to the standard that they were. They should have been built to a higher standard; that is a given. That is why the Government has committed to putting a significant remediation scheme in place to support the owners and renters in those properties to improve them and bring them up to an acceptable standard.

The Minister, Deputy Browne, has continually met with stakeholders in this area. He is committed to progressing the overall legislation that will provide for this. As I mentioned, officials were before the Oireachtas joint committee recently. We have to get this right, however, and owner management companies are a critical component of this. If we are to invest significant sums of taxpayers' money in remediating these properties, we have to ensure there is effective governance in place in all those complexes. The last thing we want to see is money being poured into something and for it either not to be improved to the level it needs to be or to be misused in some other way. This money, which is taxpayers' money, will be ring-fenced to improve apartments and duplexes that were impacted between 1991 and 2013. The report in 2022 estimated that up to 100,000 units could be impacted, not just in Dublin but right across the country. We therefore have to get this right, and I am sure all Members will contribute to that.