Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I raise this issue on my behalf and that of Senator Rose Conway-Walsh from Mayo because the families affected are in Donegal and Mayo. Some 18 months ago the Government of the day, which was led by the Minister of State's party, announced the establishment of an expert panel. This panel was to examine the crisis facing a large number of families in Donegal and Mayo in respect of the failure of the concrete blockwork in their homes as a result of the presence of mica, or pyrite as is the case in Mayo. It was to report by 31 May 2016. Here we are a full year after that deadline and that report has still not been published. The families who are crying out for help and assistance still have not received any.

Let me spell out the issues. Regularly, families come to me and other public representatives in County Donegal. They tell us about the dilemma of having a gable or other wall in their house that could fall in on top of their families. That is their reality. If they spend money now fixing and repairing it, they will not get money back through a redress scheme, so they are forced to delay and wait. Some of those families have spent money which they will never get back - money they did not have. Some have gotten a loan while some have used their family's education fund.

This is a failure of the State, of building control legislation and to ensure compression tests guaranteed that the blockwork, the core product in the family home in Ireland, was sound. It was an utter failure of State regulation right through. These families have been failed utterly. I plead with the Minister of State and her Government to publish this report and put in place a redress scheme so that these families have a solution to this devastating crisis. I have met people, grown men, in tears in their own kitchens. Can the Minister of State imagine the heartbreak? The biggest purchase of people's lives is their family home. They are devastated because of the failure of this State to protect their interests and to ensure that those blocks were sound and that the building controls standards were enforced properly. Now they are left with crumbling homes. I cannot urge the Minister of State enough that this needs to be sorted out urgently. People cannot wait any longer.