Rose Conway-Walsh Demands Public Inquiry into Defective Aggregates

You're welcome and thank you for the statements and a particular welcome to my Mayo comrades over there. How long has it now, Josephine, since you and Dorothy and I sat down? Fourteen years. Fourteen years. We have been fourteen years of this. And that won't change, Rose. No. Nothing has changed. No. Quarries are still self-regulating. Aggregate has still not been tested, been put on the market. And it's just very, very, so this thing where 2018 Project Ireland 2040 protect the extraction of aggregates for construction, balancing needs for material and the environment. There'll be tons, literally tons of aggregates for building structures well into the future. And it'll be all defective. Because R is Ireland regulated. And all you have to do is look at both aggregates. The Pyrite Scheme and the Grant Scheme. And I want to go through just some things which I do want to remember, Michael Healy here today as well, who was one of the three with yourself and Dorothy when we first met 14 years ago to go through this. So we sat here at the earlier session today with Engineers Ireland, with the department, with the agencies. And Ona Bren was making the point, rightly, that there's more and more layers of bureaucracy and layers and layers of bureaucracy added on instead of making the scheme simpler. And you'll know our bottom line when we submitted, I think it was 20, 20-something changes that need to be made to the first scheme that came. And a lot of them have been mentioned here today. But had they taken that on board, they would not only have saved money, but all the houses would be rebuilt by now. So all of these layers of bureaucracy. So I asked some questions. And I suppose I do want to get back to the thing. The only way we're going to get to the truth of what happened and all that is to have a public inquiry. And the first question in that public inquiry has to be, was this avoidable? And I think we all know the answer, that it was avoidable. But there will still be nobody held to account for us. No, no. So how do we do that? This is part of the problem. But I wanted to just take you through a couple of things that came up today that have come in from the people in Mayo. And one of those was, you know, the length of time for the appeals thing. So if somebody who, since November 2023, submitted the appeal at that time is still waiting for an answer, it's absolutely unacceptable. And you could see here today being passed from one to the other. If you look at the workflow for the new enhanced scheme, it's clearly stated there that you can appeal if you're not happy. It's the recommendation that you get. But you will never get anything higher than option two. So in other words, you're not going to ever get demolition. And that's why they took the science out of the 2019 scheme. Yeah. In Mayo, like, it is complete demolition. I think there's a recognition there. I don't know of anybody who's been offered any other option except for demolition. Well, four option fours. Yeah. And two option two. And two option two. Yeah. That's very, very serious. Yeah. Very, very serious. And since I need to know the exact details of those, because to the best of my knowledge, there isn't anybody who's been given any other options but to rebuild. But I want to get back to the appeals thing. So they couldn't give any timeline in when appeals need to be heard. But in the same way as the testing, people have waited over a year just for the results of the test. The tests are obviously sent to England. Now, I made the suggestion to them that because there are so many thousands of houses that have to be rebuilt, that we set up a state facility for the testing and have our expertise in there. And we do it that way rather than exporting it and waiting for procurement and everything else and just through the behest of private companies that aren't even in this country. Yeah. That was one of our asks at the, with Johnny Gold, that was one of our asks on the working group. Is it? Yeah. Sarah Rose, it is possible to get the results of testing independently in eight weeks. So I don't know why, when you go through the scheme, it takes nine months to get the results. Yeah. So that's the procurement and the way things are set up here. So it needs to, anyway, I think we need to set up our own thing. So that was the thing. Then the other thing is in terms of the 10%, because I think it's important, even with, we know the scheme isn't fit for purpose. We know that it'll never meet in terms of, you know, people being locked out because of, that they can't afford to get in. But, so we don't yet have the instruction. So there's no point in ringing Mayo County Council to ask, when am I going to get the extra payment? Because they don't have the answers from the department as of yet. So, so you've all of those things and it's very clear that there aren't any answers or that the people who are involved in it don't have answers and didn't have answers for us today. I did ask as well, Josephine, what you've been raising all the time in terms of the geologists for the quarries. So what I said to them, they were saying, we have all this valuable research and it's going to inform the future and all that. So I said, as an interim, you know, protective measure, you know, can we appoint or have geologists that are appointed to the quarries to ensure that the aggregate that is coming out is fit for purpose? I don't know, again, what will happen. That's really frightening, I think. There are young couples coming out there, they're going around, they're looking at estates, they're trying to raise a mortgage of hundreds of thousands now. And chances are that those blocks are going to be defective. And the poured concrete is now, that's established as well by science. Well, I think people need their reassurance on it. Now, the other thing was around Engineers Ireland here, so I asked the Engineers Ireland whether because engineers won't sign off on the foundations when they haven't done the foundations. And they said they couldn't advise them to do that either. So I just want to feed back to you what they've said today. I am very concerned in terms of the approved housing body here. Sorry if I could just, Mr McManus. Because on your, and maybe I'm picking this up wrong, where you were talking about the different options being available and people remaining in the homes while the work is done. That certainly can't happen in Mayo, where you need complete rebuilds. There are examples, sir. There are examples we've found with some of our members that even in a retail situation, they almost take the rain off the building. Because we've been waiting for two, three years for this. Some HPs have had to go ahead and do their own piece of work. Maybe put silicon in cracks to prevent any more damage being undertaken. Because some of these tenants, the most vulnerable probably will have, people with disabilities, older people. And in the short term, just to protect against more severe weather. Some HPs have put in silicon and so forth. And then in buildings to prevent any more damage to the properties. But really, I think the big thing we're looking for is to introduce the scheme itself. We don't have a social scheme at the moment. So that's why we're having a tech and remedial works at the moment. We don't have to do anything because some of the tenants in our schemes and other social housing schemes, they need housing and support. So if you decant these people, there are no other housing options. A lot of people, the homeowners in Donegal, their families, their parents and friends, older people are in the same scheme. But that's why HPs have had to do some remedial works in the short term to prevent any more damage pending a new scheme being introduced. That's why I put it to the department, and we've put it to them before, and Park McLaughlin and Ona Bryn as well, around getting modular homes. Because there's no places to, there's no places for people to rent while the homes are being done up. So that would be just one solution, at least if you could have modular homes. They can be social housing at another day, but people have nowhere to go. And you know there's no houses to rent in Eris, as we are, but I'll come back again. We'd love to move on at this point.