Conor Sheehan: Families Left on Crumbling Foundations

And at the outset I want to welcome the visitors to the gallery today and again as others have said I want to pay tribute to Deputy Ward and the work he's done. I went last October, my colleague Senator Nessa Cosgrove, up to Donegal to visit some of the people that are affected by this humanitarian disaster and you know I thought for example I knew about defective concrete or I thought I thought I could quantify in my head before I went up there the actual scale of the humanitarian disaster but I can't and I can't help thinking every time I think of defective concrete of putting my hand out on someone's house and feeling the wall come away like dust or I can't help but think of the smell of the of the black mold in the kitchens we went to visit, the fact that the lights and the electricity keeps tripping because there's water ingressing through everything, the fact that things like chimneys fall off people's houses and that's considered to be somewhat you know not that big of a deal, the fact when I met somebody else who was so concerned about the safety of themselves and their children because the walls are crumbling so badly on their house that they're afraid that the roof is going to come down and crush them and I mean I think the counter motion here is absolutely tone-deaf you know the the counter motion states that the scheme relies on IS 465 2018 which does not require testing of foundations and what is the point of pouring a brand new house onto a cracked foundation it doesn't make any sense even the fact that that the motion notes that 500 homes were remediated 500 homes is a fraction it is a minuscule compared to the true level of needs that's out there we'd a very informative presentation in the in the AV room particularly from Professor Paul Dunlop who is an expert in this area you know who quantified that there could be at least 12,000 homes affected in Donegal alone notwithstanding the fact that that that we have this in Limerick it's not just an issue in Donegal and the Northwest we have this in Limerick City I've had people in my constituency office in tears because they're living in semi-detached homes in Limerick City and as Professor Dunlop pointed out yesterday the defective concrete takes a lot longer to actually show up in areas like Limerick and in many cases with a woman who came to see me in particular who's involved with the defective concrete campaign in Limerick hers only showed up when she went got an SEAI grant got the walls pumped and when she got the walls pumped then that effectively showed all the cracks but the core issue remains that the people who are suffering this humanitarian disaster are being treated as second-class citizens in comparison to the people who were devastated equally by pyrite in Fingal and on the eastern seaboard of the country and that's a fact and that is the core of the issue here and the legislation is completely too narrow it talks about like I can't believe that people are still talking about mica you know when the fact of the matter is that this is not just something that affects defective concrete blocks and houses it affects poured concrete and other building material and the core issue as for always in this country with anything you know during the Celtic Tiger period is the lack of any accountability because we know that as well as the quarry owners the political system as well was up to its neck in this and we've had a total regulatory failure we have quarries who have and are manufacturing defective concrete and getting away with it and how is the state responded the state responded as it always does to victims of injustice by forcing blameless citizens to prove that they aren't lying to by bureaucratically downgrading their applications at the click of a mouse and by passing the long-term risk back on to them themselves like the fact that the state is effectively telling homeowners to rebuild their lives on top of foundations that we know contain pyrotite and other sulfide materials is absolute madness you know you're talking about being penny wise but you're being really speaking pound foolish and the standard that the government is relying on is operating under conditions of material scientific uncertainty and there is no long-term evidence that these foundations will hold up over the next 30 40 or 50 years you can't tell a family to build a home on a questionable foundation and just leave them to hold the legal the financial bag if the foundation fails a decade or more from now we need an independent review of is 465 2026 specifically looking at sulfites and at how sulfites and pyrotite destroy foundations over time and we need to amend the defective concrete block scheme so that no individual is ever forced to retain a foundation where engineering uncertainty exists homeowners must have an explicit fully funded right to opt for a complete foundation replacement if there is reasonable doubt and we need to ensure that all residual structural risk remains with the state if the state standard pays then the state is going if the state standard fails in the state is going to have to pay because these homeowners cannot this crisis was caused by a catastrophic failure of government regulation and a total lack of oversight in the quarrying sector particularly from the Fianna Fáil government from 1997 the state completely failed to protect these people and it's time now for the government you know to stop the ducking to stop the half measures and to actually deliver the 100% redress these families fundamentally deserve so that they can actually have peace and look I welcome the opportunity at any opportunity to speak on this issue and I commend Deputy Ward for his motion because what he is seeking to do here is to ensure that the state takes and assumes accountability for the risk of defective foundations in concrete homes and it is imperative that that this burden does not fall on homeowners who cannot afford to pay the difference and we have a duty here as legislators to listen and to reflect to the people that we represent and the poor families who have been affected by this should not be expected or forced to bear the responsibility and cost required to remedy this problem and when they have gone out of their way you know to secure a home for their family and they have made that purchase in good faith with an expectation that the home they live will not fall down on top of them homeowners should be able to feel safe in their homes they should have confidence in the structure of the dwelling they live in these are relatively basic things and and invariably when homeowners like these poor people are are going to be forced in into some sort of a rebuild they have one shot to make it work so they cannot be forced to rebuild their home to literally put blood sweat and tears and an insane amount of money into rebuilding the home and then to rebuild it again essentially on quicksand I mean it's absolutely bananas because once a decision has been made to rebuild you can't turn back the clock on that and that is why this is really important through detailed scientific research it's now known that the problems with defective concrete can be traced to an internal sulfite attack and it's clearly apparent that with the distribution of this defective and highly damaging concrete material that numerous EU and Irish concrete regulations were violated and it's of critical importance that these regulations be enforced to prevent the status quo from continuing because we don't even just have as other speakers have said defective concrete in homes we have defected there's defective concrete in secondary schools in Limerick and we need the government to address this by commissioning an independent international review of the scientific base of IS 465 2026 because we need a greater understanding as to how and why this entered the market in the first place in my own city of Limerick we reckon there are two and a half thousand properties potentially affected by concrete defects and deteriorations and we need a different approach to this and that's why I'm really disappointed in terms of the government amendment.