Rose Conway-Walsh urges nobody be left behind after houses collapse
Rose Conway-Walsh addressed a humanitarian housing crisis after houses collapsed in Mayo, urging that affected people must not be left behind. She argued the relief scheme should not exclude people who cannot afford to enter it or who cannot find alternative properties, and called for oversight of quarries supplying aggregate.
Humanitarian urgency
She warned this is not business as usual but an immediate humanitarian situation and said in any country this would be treated urgently, urging compassion and common sense for those displaced.
Protection for affected households
She stressed nobody should be locked out of the proposed scheme because they could not afford to get into it or could not find an alternative property, emphasising that the damage was not the fault of those affected.
Regulation and quarry oversight
She queried the light regulation currently in place and called on the housing minister to establish proper oversight of the quarries that supply aggregate and materials used to build houses.
Moral and economic case
She underlined that the State is one of the richest countries in the world and argued that the measures proposed that night made economic sense as well as being the compassionate response required. She concluded with the Gaelic refrain Goan m'agher. Goan m'agher.
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Just to conclude in that, I think you really need to get it that this isn't just business as usual. It is a humanitarian situation and the bottom line, certainly the bottom line for me in Mayo, right from the beginning of when I saw people's houses collapsing was that nobody would be left behind and that nobody would be locked out of this scheme because they couldn't afford to get into it or they couldn't find an alternative property or whatever else may lock them out. We cannot leave people behind in this situation because it wasn't their fault. It wasn't their fault that there was no regulation, there was light regulation. Indeed, I would still query the regulation that is there right now and that is why I would say that you really need to look as well, your housing minister needs to look at having a proper oversight of the quarries that are currently supplying aggregate and currently supplying materials that are being used to build houses. But we are trying to deal with an immediate humanitarian situation here. In any country in the world, this is the way that it would be looked at. We are one of the richest countries in the world. Please, I would ask you to have some compassion, some common sense. It also makes economic sense in what has been proposed here tonight. Goan m'agher. Goan m'agher.
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