Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I visited the Ardara Community Childcare centre yesterday and I was horrified to see the effect the defective blocks are having on the building. Ardara Community Childcare opened a purpose-built premises in the heart of Ardara town in 2007 after securing funding from the EU's special support programme for peace and reconciliation and with the help of many local funding initiatives in Ardara. Since then, it has provided vital childcare for hundreds of families in the area and the surrounding areas, and provides an essential after-school service for children attending six national schools close to the facility. There is no doubt that this childcare service is extremely important to the people of Ardara. Many people rely on this service and many parents have stated they would be unable to work without it. It was devastating for them to discover the findings of a recent defective block report, which showed significant defective concrete materials in all five of the tested areas, including the building's foundations.

The report recommended that the building be demolished and rebuilt due to the high levels of pyrite, pyratite and free mica. However, disgracefully, there is no Government funding available for this. Ardara Community Childcare is a community organisation with a voluntary board of directors and has charitable status. We have been telling the Government since the introduction of the redress scheme that defective blocks would be found in buildings such as this, yet the Government has refused to listen and now community organisations such Ardara Community Childcare are faced with this dire situation through no fault of theirs. They are in this position because of the Government's light-touch regulation and now the Government refuses to address or rectify the effect light-touch regulation has had on community buildings across Donegal. In response to a question regarding Ardara Community Childcare, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, stated that this is a unique situation. I dispute this completely. This is certainly not a unique situation, as the Government would know if it had listened to the Opposition and the people affected from the beginning.

Defective blocks are already having a detrimental effect on many important services across Donegal, such as Raphoe Community Playgroup and Letterkenny Community Childcare, and this is only the beginning. As the years go on, we will start to see the effects of detective blocks in far more community public buildings in Donegal and across the entire country. The Government must address this now before the issue gets completely out of hand and many vital services are forced to close as a result. There is no way organisations like Ardara Community Childcare will be able to raise the money required to demolish and rebuild the building as a small community. Without vital Government funding, it will be forced to close its doors during a crisis in childcare and this will be devastating for the town of Ardara. What will the Government do to ensure this does not happen and that buildings with these defective blocks will be remedied?

See this speech in context