Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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My Department received a submission from Sligo County Council, dated 25 October, 2021 which outlined how they proposed to go about putting together a submission requesting the extension of the Defective Concrete Blocks Grant scheme to County Sligo.

In order to progress matters I and officials from my Department attended a virtual meeting held on the 2nd November 2021 with Oireachtas members, action group members, advisors, and officials from Sligo County Council. On the 04 November 2021 a further meeting was held between officials from my Department and the Director of Services, Sligo County Council to provide further clarity to the council on the steps they needed to take.

Sligo County Council has agreed to take a lead role in determining, in accordance with the IS: 465 protocol, that issues arising in homes in County Sligo are in fact due to the presence of excessive amounts of deleterious materials (mica or pyrite) in the aggregate used to manufacture the concrete blocks and secondly quantify the likely extent of the problem in the county. This will form the basis of the submission to be made by Sligo County Council in seeking an extension of the DCB scheme to County Sligo.

Future extensions of the scheme to other local authority areas was considered as part of wider deliberations on the Scheme by Government. To that end, on 30 November 2021, I announced significant enhancements to the existing Scheme. Included as part of these improvements, I as Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, may, with Government approval, extend the scheme beyond the counties of Donegal and Mayo to additional counties, where the evidence supports such an extension.

My Department will deal promptly with any submission received from Sligo County Council on this matter.