Rose Conway-Walsh: Government Not Listening on Redress
Rose Conway-Walsh speaks in support of Charles Ward's motion and accuses the government of failing to listen to victims of building defects and to act on a comprehensive redress scheme. She cites expert testimony, rising costs and the urgent need for proper foundation testing as reasons the government must change course now.
What she said: Rose Conway-Walsh told the chamber she and her colleagues back the motion and warned that the government is inflicting cruelty on people affected by building failures through inaction and negligence. She argued that had ministers listened earlier, a 100% redress scheme would already be in place and many homes and lives would have been rebuilt.
Costs and expert evidence: Conway-Walsh referenced presentations from Dr Chris Brown and Professor Paul Dunlop and research from Ulster University, noting an estimated cost of £462,000 per property across 20,000 properties - about €9.2 billion. She criticised the absence of a proper plan to recoup costs and contrasted the approach to arrangements elsewhere.
Foundations and testing: She emphasised the necessity of testing foundations, repeating warnings from Engineering Ireland that properties cannot be signed off where foundations remain unaddressed. Conway-Walsh also raised concerns about the gaps families face - sums of tens of thousands of pounds they cannot afford - and called for off-ramping and accelerated testing to speed repairs and redress.
What she said: Rose Conway-Walsh told the chamber she and her colleagues back the motion and warned that the government is inflicting cruelty on people affected by building failures through inaction and negligence. She argued that had ministers listened earlier, a 100% redress scheme would already be in place and many homes and lives would have been rebuilt.
Costs and expert evidence: Conway-Walsh referenced presentations from Dr Chris Brown and Professor Paul Dunlop and research from Ulster University, noting an estimated cost of £462,000 per property across 20,000 properties - about €9.2 billion. She criticised the absence of a proper plan to recoup costs and contrasted the approach to arrangements elsewhere.
Foundations and testing: She emphasised the necessity of testing foundations, repeating warnings from Engineering Ireland that properties cannot be signed off where foundations remain unaddressed. Conway-Walsh also raised concerns about the gaps families face - sums of tens of thousands of pounds they cannot afford - and called for off-ramping and accelerated testing to speed repairs and redress.
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Transcript
Go raibh maith agat. I want to thank Charles Ward for bringing forward this motion and it's no surprise that I and my colleagues are very happy to support it and it's very important that we all work together to tackle this. But Minister, the government still isn't listening. You're just not listening and you're not hearing what is being said and that is the great tragedy of all this. Like since we started this nearly 12 years ago, more than that on the Arras Peninsula in Mayo. You haven't listened since because had you listened we would now have a scheme, we would have a 100% redress scheme. Many, many people would have their homes rebuilt and they would have their lives rebuilt. So I just cannot understand why you are inflicting this cruelty on people through no fault of their own. This was negligence of government. It was a lack of regulation that has been said and now we see all kinds of other things that we're told that regulation is too strict and we need to deregulate things. My God, we need to deregulate things. The cost, so the human cost of this, but the monetary cost as well and the opportunity cost. What was presented to us yesterday by Dr Chris Brown and Professor Paul Dunlop, who I don't know where we would be without them and the colleagues in Ulster University as well in terms of bringing forward the science on this because the government hasn't done it. But the cost of it, estimating at £462,000 per property, 20,000 properties, will be at least £9.2 billion. £9.2 billion. That's what's coming out of taxpayers' pockets to do that. Now there hasn't been any proper attempts to recoup some of that money from anywhere else, like it was in Wales. I mean Dr Chris Brown explained to us yesterday in terms of the division of the responsibilities there and how the funds were set up, the redress funds were set up and it's not like it has been set up here. But the decisions have to be based on the science. But the other really important thing that came up yesterday was in terms, obviously in terms of foundations and we have said all along, foundations have to be tested for God's sake. You know, Engineering Ireland have told you that. I mean, they cannot sign off on properties where the foundations haven't been replaced. And people just can't afford in terms of the gaps that are there. I mean, Piers Daugherty talked about the gaps of 80,000 to whatever, like there's gaps of up to 100,000 that people are asked to find to pay for the government's negligence on this. But the off-ramping situation has to be looked at in order to be able to speed up the testing as well.