Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach. I welcome the opportunity to discuss this issue as per the way the amendment is phrased. There are plenty of homeowners in County Clare who are affected by this. They rightly have a level of upset about some of the quarries, and in the case of Clare it is CRH, quite frankly. It is probably the biggest quarry and biggest aggregate company in western Europe, with operations all over the world. It is a hugely profitable company and there is a necessity for a detailed investigation into how a publicly quoted company like that has operated. Homeowners have approached it. Builders have approached it on occasion. There has been an effort to hush-hush. In some cases the company has done some remediation work with no liability accepted. To me, that is serious.

In any engagement I have had with homeowners, they talk about the necessity or the desire to take on the quarries. I am conscious it is different in Donegal because some of them were smaller quarries. I have advised people, rightly or wrongly, to leave that to the State. The cost on any group of people to take on a company like CRH would be phenomenal. Standard practice for large corporations is to dig in, hire more lawyers than anyone else and fight in the courts. While we like to think our legal system is fair, and it is, it is not accessible for many people, especially when it comes to commercial litigation, which this would be. Therefore, while I am with Senator Gavan on the sentiment here and the desire to try to find a route to help those people, I have taken a different approach in my dealings with people and said whatever else they do, they should not get caught up in litigation because it will bring them into a vortex that only goes one way, and that is down. I have seen it happen over time with how large corporations do their business. That is what their lawyers will advise them, namely, tangle people up and tie them up for years in court.

People have already lost so much of their lives on this. While I fully understand the sentiment, I would like to think the State would put its full rigour, backing and all our legal expertise into taking a company like CRH to court for failure to deliver blocks of an appropriate standard. I would like to think we would, if necessary, carry out tribunals and commissions of investigation, which I think we have got better at. It would be recognition because through this scheme the State is putting a burden on every taxpayer in the State, and out of respect to other taxpayers, we need to ensure we are doing everything we can to hold those culpable, either directly or indirectly, for the failures here to account.

I get that there are smaller quarries that have gone out of business or will fold, but I regularly read with interest the financial statements of CRH and it pains me greatly. I am not directly affected by pyrite but many of my friends and constituents are. When large corporations continue to profit and effectively ignore the homeowners, it is tough. It is hard to watch. It is adding to the pain and suffering of people as they see top executives receiving lottery-style payouts annually while people are looking at the render falling off their walls, the cracking, windows falling out and trying to figure out how they are going to put a home together again. There is an injustice there. Separate to this entire scheme, I hope the State takes whatever action is possible and I would not skimp on it and would not be boxing around it. If there is a route to court, take it, and at least make them answer in public for their actions and inaction.