Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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295. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to introduce a redress board to deal with new and other anticipated claims in respect of Pyrite-damaged homes in North County Mayo; if he will consider offering the same redress to property owners in North County Mayo as was offered to home-owners in County Donegal; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29245/15]

Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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While I fully appreciate and acknowledge the extremely difficult and distressing situations that householders have to deal with when faced with the consequences of poor workmanship or the use of defective materials, in general, building defects are matters for resolution between contracting parties, ie. the homeowner, the builder, the supplier and/or their respective insurers.

In the event that the parties cannot reach a settlement by negotiation the option of seeking redress in the Courts can be considered. In this context, I believe that the parties responsible for poor workmanship and/or the supply of defective materials should face up to their responsibilities and take appropriate actions to provide remedies for the affected homeowners.

In March of last year, my Department met with a number of private homeowners from County Mayo whose homes are affected by structural problems. The problems appear to concern approximately 15 private houses and the period of construction for the houses involved was 1997 to 2002. My Department was also made aware of problems associated with the cracking of concrete blocks in a small number of local authority estates in County Mayo involving some 17 dwellings.

Similar to the position in County Mayo, my Department also met with a number of private homeowners from County Donegal in December last year and, subsequently, I visited a number of the affected dwellings in late February of this year. Test reports on the affected concrete blocks, which had previously been commissioned by a number of the affected homeowners, were made available to my Department in order to provide a more detailed and scientific insight into the problems that have arisen in Donegal.

Having regard to the information available to my Department, a technical report has been prepared for my consideration; I intend to complete my deliberations in these matters shortly.