Lorraine Clifford Lee (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the pyrite issue and to ask the Leader to invite the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, to the House to discuss it. More than 20,000 houses in Ireland have been contaminated with pyrite. Many of them are in north County Dublin but they are also spread across the country, including some in County Mayo. The pyrite remediation scheme has only approved approximately 1,300 homes for repairs and only about half of them have had the repairs carried out to date.This is not acceptable.

Only the most badly-affected homes have been approved. There is a cohort in the middle and they have been in limbo for the past ten years. Their homes and lives have been badly affected by this but their cases are not being approved for repair work. Their homes are crumbling around them and are deemed worthless. They are unable to move on with their lives. It is putting a strain on their families. They cannot do renovation work on their houses. They cannot put on an extension. I have spoken to parents who have not had additional children because they have been unable to extend their houses to accommodate their families. Others have put off starting families. Some cannot do any painting work because they do not know if or when the call will ever come that their house will be repaired.

I call on the Minister to attend the House and discuss this issue. It affects 20,000 families throughout the country. Many lives have been destroyed by this. A person's homes is her safe sanctuary. If their houses are falling down around them, it is difficult for these families to do anything else in their lives. It is affecting them badly. The Minister needs to allocate more funding, employ more people and extend the scheme. He should ensure that every house contaminated by pyrite will be remedied rather than merely rubber-stamped and abandoned. I appeal to the Leader to address this issue.