Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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72. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will confirm whether the properties in Red Island, Skerries sampled by the Housing Agency meet the criteria for inclusion in the defective concrete blocks grant scheme; the next steps for affected homeowners; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65700/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks Act 2022 which underpins the enhanced Defective Concrete Block Scheme was commenced in June 2023.

The Scheme is currently open to applications in five counties, namely Clare, Donegal, Limerick, Mayo and Sligo.

When a local authority that is not currently designated under the Scheme determines that homes within their area may have been damaged by defective concrete blocks, they can seek to have the Scheme extended to include any such county or part of that county.

Section 5 of the Act contains details on this process. The statutory designation process can commence upon a request by a local authority or by myself, as Minister, to the Housing Agency. The Agency thereafter carries out technical testing of dwellings.

After the completion of any testing, the Housing Agency makes a recommendation to the Minister as to whether an order to designate the whole or part of a local authority's area should or should not be made by the Government.

I understand that Fingal County Council, in accordance with the Act, submitted a request to the Housing Agency for inclusion in the Scheme and this request related to a small number of properties in their area.

The Housing Agency appointed a Chartered Engineer from their panel to assist in their investigations. The investigations included concrete block testing, as required under the Act.

Subsequently, the Housing Agency received the test results from the properties sampled in Fingal and I have received the final report from the Housing Agency. On the basis of the recommendations made by the Agency I intend to shortly bring the matter to Government seeking approval for the making of an Order designating the relevant parts of Fingal County Council as being part of the DCB Scheme.