Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome, as have others, the owners and residents in the Gallery and those who are watching from home, some from my constituency of Dublin South-Central, including residents of The Crescent in Park West, Metropolitan Apartments, the Tramyard and many other apartment blocks and housing complexes. People, not just from my constituency but throughout the country, are facing demands of tens of thousands of euro to carry out even initial repairs to make safe the homes they thought were their own and were secure and fire safe when they purchased them. That is without the €40,000 and €50,000 that will follow as a demand. The demand in The Crescent is €67,000 per home. Nobody I know among those who own those properties has that to foot up. We are in a housing and cost-of-living crisis and yet that is the demand.

We know who caused the problem. We know that developers and builders took shortcuts and risked the lives of people who are now in those homes. We need an immediate announcement from the Government. I welcome what the Minister said but we need the scheme to offer 100% redress and to be retrospective. That would allow the management companies, residents and owners take immediate steps to make their apartments safe and to draw down money, if they can. If the Government announces that, those people can probably go to the banks. The Minister said he talked to the banks. One of the solutions needs to be that they can draw down money from the banks, once the Government has indicated the scheme will offer 100% redress and will be retrospective.

If we are to wait months or years, we are asking those people to stay in properties that are not safe. The State is asking that. The Government has an opportunity to take immediate action. We are asking residents to sleep in their beds, while worrying and continuing to stress about the building around them. We need to take further steps a lot more quickly than the Minister indicated. Even though progress has been made, we need that scheme to be made retrospective immediately.

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