Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks (Amendment) Bill 2025: Second Stage
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-02
============================================================

Louise O'Reilly (SF), Dublin Fingal West

Do not interrupt me. I listened to 12 minutes of the Minister of State describing his frustration but never managing to mention who it is he is frustrated with and who is causing these delays. The power is his. He is in government. He is the Government but, my God, he is so frustrated with the delays. That act does not fool anyone. It certainly does not fool me. It certainly would not fool people looking in this evening whose houses are crumbling down around their ears and have to hear their kids ask when they are going to get their new house and when they will be able to sleep. I know this because I have dealt with this issue in my constituency. People's lives were ruined. Mention was made earlier of post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. These people will absolutely have to live with the consequences, even after the scaffolding is taken down. My constituents waited for years because their houses were just not bad enough. They had to wait until their houses were crumbling down around their ears. They had to wait until their living conditions got so bad that they could get into the scheme. Even after that, the trauma continues.
The publication of the legislation shows us the Government has learned nothing, absolutely nothing, from the litany of its past mistakes. This was all acknowledged by the Minister of State, Deputy McConalogue, as if it was somehow somebody else's fault. Give us a break, for God's sake. It is utterly shameless of him to come in here and pretend and say somebody should do something. Really? That somebody is him. People were promised 100% redress. That is what they expect. It is not their fault the blocks were defective. It is no fault of theirs. The Minister of State and his colleagues were in government. Maybe it is their fault. Would the Minister of State assume any responsibility? He does not take any responsibility at all. It is always somebody else's fault.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-02/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:24+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-02