Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank all those on the working group, who did a lot of work on this, especially the people involved in the Apartment Owners' Work, the Construction Defects Alliance, and the more recently formed Not Our Fault redress campaign.

The best way to prevent defects from happening again starts with a robust planning and building control system. Yesterday, the Dáil passed legislation to remove the planning process from some social housing which will be built next year. If we had a great, robust building control system in this country which has rarely ever failed us, one might make some excuse for that, but given that we have an appalling track record, ripping up some of the safeguards in the process is the wrong approach. Unfortunately, while that legislation is for a one-year temporary suspension of planning for social homes, I predict that at this time next year, we will be asked to extend the legislation again. Safeguards relating to fire safety defects are one area where people could start to raise concerns if they felt that high-risk construction methods were being used. They were able to flag issues in the planning process. That has now been removed with respect to social homes.

The Minister made comments about interim measures and bringing the memo to Cabinet next week. We do not want residents to hold back from having fire safety remediation works take place. We know that is happening in a small number of cases. The Minister signalled that he would prioritise fire safety works. I can absolutely see the logic in prioritising the highest risk first. There is a potential problem with that since residents often have fire safety and water ingress defects. If the memo says the Government will give some guarantee of retrospective funding if residents do fire safety works in the near future, but cannot give a guarantee for other works, does that mean some residents will hold back because they will carry out the works at the same time?

The Construction Defects Alliance gave a briefing to Oireachtas Members recently. Kevin Hollingsworth showed us photos of where people working on developments had deliberately broken through concrete separations between floors in a bid to save about €30 worth of building materials and those works had put the lives of everyone in that block at danger. Some very deliberate work was done. Another key point it made is that owners' management companies are already struggling to get management fees paid. They are run by volunteer directors. They cannot borrow, in practical terms. Landlords are already the worst payers with regard to non-payment of fees. There are already issues where they cannot continue with works because some landlords will not contribute to the cost. It is essential that there is up-front funding and that multi-unit landlords have a way to recoup that, either with a charge with interest in the units, through taxation or otherwise.

A receiver acting on behalf of an arm of the State, NAMA, has been pursuing residents and homeowners in Carrickmines Green to force them to take on responsibility for construction defects. It is scandalous that the State, which has failed abysmally to enforce building standards through one of its agencies, is pursuing residents and homeowners to shoulder the costs. That is absolutely wrong. If this Government is committed to fairness in this area, it would put a stop to that straight away.

Regarding the National Building Control and Market Surveillance Office, there are reports today that local authorities are buying construction materials which do not comply with EU rules and standards for building materials. That shows what needs to be done about accountability. The draft report on quarries in Donegal was given to the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, last June. It criticised the lack of oversight of the quarry industry and the lack of resources available to regulators in the sector. It stated, "quarries in Ireland have been poorly regulated regarding planning, environmental and market surveillance compliance perspective due [to] no overall responsibility for quarries within the local authority set-up." I do not know this from reading the report because this was all taken out of the report after it was sent to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, last June. I know this from reading media reports since.

Why were critical parts of the report taken out? How can we learn from past mistakes if these criticisms are deleted from official reports? Did the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, or his Department play any role in seeking the removal of these criticisms from the report after he received it last June? It was published only last week. Why do the Government or Minister seem to think the public does not have a right to know about this? How can we possibly learn if that is how it will happen?

Another part of the report stated that quarries and pits in every townland in Ireland could open and close in a matter of hours. That is a key issue for regulation. It also stated that, critically, it is only when disaster strikes that such services are properly resourced, until they gradually become under-resourced. It is referring to market surveillance. It states that millions are spent on planning and billions on remediation and fixing non-compliance when, in comparison, very little is spent on building control, inspection and market surveillance. That is of critical importance and was removed from the draft report so that none of us would find out about it.

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