Brian Stanley: Calls for urgent action on defective concrete crisis

Thanks, and welcome the opportunity to speak on this very important motion. I think the issue with the effect of concrete, what we had in Leinster, was a huge problem. What we are seeing in Donegal and down along the north-west and the western seaboard is catastrophic in terms of the scale of it and the effects that is having on families. I think that the motion is very, very reasonable, calling for a cease of impartial remediation to reinstate all the original determinations of qualified engineers to legislate, to guarantee the retrospective support and to establish an independent statutory authority to deal with that. That is some of the more important items that is called for in this motion. I think that it is really important that it is not just the physical effects of houses falling down, but literally people's lives falling down around them. People paying huge mortgages for houses that are now crumbling. That is before you even move on to the health and safety issues that are there as well, and the effects that is having on people's health. I think the system with appeals, the fact that appeals are left unsolved over a protracted period of the time. That is adding to it. The appeal system needs to be speeded up. There are clearly problems with it. Some homeowners have been forced into cheaper remediation works and downgrades. I think that the situation in relation to putting extra costs on people, a lot of people are paying mortgages and mortgages that are already stretched with. They may be in arrears and they cannot, and then of course there is the added cost of having to rent accommodation, and that has to be all factored into consideration. The remedial scheme has been, at times, pitched more like a grant than actually a compensation scheme, a remediation scheme, and that is not good enough. This is no fault of the people who are living in the homes. People bought the homes, people built the homes. They had no control over what kind of material was going into them, but the State can have an influence on this. People are in a situation where there is no choice to put to stay in these unsafe homes. The scheme as well is very important. The motion calls for it to cover social housing, creches, community facilities, and indeed businesses. In 2014, Minister Phil Oaken brought forward a statutory instrument, Building Controls Amendment Regulation, 2014, S.A. 9. At that time, up to then, under the Fianna Fáil and progressive Democrats who crashed the building industry and crashed the economy. Every worker, I just want to remind the House, depending on interest rates, but it averages around €400 a year every worker pays to fill that black hole that was created during that economic crash, caused by the progressive Democrats and by Fianna Fáil during the noughties. But let's move on. The building controls was an attempt to rectify the flaw in building standards and certification in 2014. I challenged Phil Hogan on this at the time, and what he put in place was was a system where, and I'm reading it here, where the role would be carried out by a competent registered professional. The problem is, is the assigned certifier is appointed by the building owner, and that's another form of self-certification, and that hasn't been rectified. There's a flaw in building controls in this country, and it doesn't matter what body or what office you administer, unless you address that flaw, that flaw will remain. I raised this with him here several times on the floor of the Dáil, going back 11 years ago. And could I also say to you that in relation to the queries, in the minute I have left, in relation to the queries, you know, we can't undo the past. We have to try and deal with the problem now. It's a big problem for government, for opposition, for society, taxpayers and the building industry to remediate and sort out all of this. But we need to stop these things from happening. And one of the things that needs to happen is there needs to be spot checks of quality control on the material coming out of the quarries. And if quarry owners knew that they could have a spot check at any time that would stop the operation of the quarry, and I'm not trying to obstruct building work here because we need to speed up a lot of it, but to ensure that samples taken are tested scientifically. And where's where's there's evidence of defective material that that quarry ceases operation? And it would appeal to the government to bring in a system where the local authority or some other competent authority could do that. And that's that's all I'm going to say on it. I want to leave it to the experts, the people from Donegal, to carry on the discussion. Thank you. I want to have to work.