Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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481. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if the State will reimburse 90% of the engineering costs to the family of an applicant who has passed away before the completion of stage 1 under the defective concrete block grant scheme. [63537/22]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The purpose of the Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks Act 2022 (the DCB Act) is to implement and give legislative underpinning to a series of measures to improve and enhance the current grant scheme, as agreed by Government on 30 November 2021.

Pending commencement of the Act and the enhanced DCB grant scheme, applications can continue to be made to local authorities and processed under the current DCB grant scheme, which is underpinned by Statutory Instrument (S.I.) 25 of 2020, as amended.

The current and enhanced grant schemes apply to the owners of dwellings which are damaged due to the use of defective concrete blocks. In order to be considered a relevant owner under the current scheme the dwelling must be the individual’s principal private residence, that is an individual owns (or co-owns) and occupies it as his or her only or main residence. If a person inherits the dwelling after 31 January 2020, that person is also eligible to apply for the grant scheme, including the reimbursement of engineers costs as provided for in Regulation 8 of S.I. 25 of 2020, as amended. However the dwelling must now be this individual’s principal private residence, and the individual must intend in good faith to reside in the dwelling as his or her principal private residence on completion of the qualifying works to the dwelling.

A Notification of Change of Applicant Form must be completed as soon as possible and submitted to the local authority for consideration per Regulation 12(1) of S.I. 25 of 2020 in relation to the current scheme.

A similar process will apply under Section 24(1) of the Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks Act 2022 in respect of the Enhanced scheme, as soon as the Act is commenced.

Regulation 3 of S.I. No. 654 of 2022, which came into effect on 13 December 2022, amends Regulation 8 (11) of S.I. No. 25 of 2020, relating to the current scheme, by waiving the requirement for a Stage 1 confirmation of eligibility to be in place prior to recoupment of 90% of the cost of the engineer’s report fees for homeowners, as per the requirements in the Regulations, whose applications were received by the local authority before the 13 December, 2022.

Requests for further details on this process with respect to the current scheme can be addressed by the administrators of the scheme, namely Donegal County Council and Mayo County Council.