Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-10
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Eoin Ó Broin (SF), Dublin Mid-West

I move amendment No. 5:
In page 5, between lines 26 and 27, to insert the following:
“ Report on gap between cost of remediation and grant under scheme
2. Within 3 months of the passing of this Act the Minister shall lay before both Houses of the Oireachtas a report examining the gap between the actual cost of remediation for eligible homeowners and the grant provided under the scheme. The report shall set out recommendations for reform of the defective concrete block scheme to ensure that it provides 100 per cent redress to all impacted homeowners.”.
The purpose of these three amendments is to give me and my colleagues an opportunity to highlight some of the challenges and weaknesses in the operation of the current scheme. While they are not addressed in the Minister's Bill, it is an opportunity for us to raise them. If they are not addressed at some point, hundreds, if not thousands, of homeowners and tenants will continue to be unable to access the scheme.
It is important to reflect on where we are with the scheme. When the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, introduced the revised defective concrete blocks scheme very controversially in this House, railroading through the legislation and ignoring 80 homeowner-drafted amendments, we were told that the revised scheme would address the problems identified by affected homeowners and tenants in the affected counties. What is interesting is that when we look at the figures, the actual number of applicants to the revised scheme is less than the number of applicants to the original scheme. If the revised scheme were better, if the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, had succeeded in fixing the problems of the original scheme based on secondary legislation, there would have been more applications. The most up-to-date figures I have by way of parliamentary question show that there were 1,644 applicants to the original scheme up to the summer of this year, but only 1,152 to the enhanced scheme. We also know that because of many of the deficiencies in the transitional mechanisms between the original and the revised scheme, a very significant number of homeowners are stuck in limbo and unable to transition.
The really startling figure relates to the total number of homes that have had work commenced on the property and the total number of homes where full remediation has taken place. Again, I am sure there is a slightly revised number that the Minister has available to him. Only 908 homes had commenced some level of work as of the summer of this year, and only 203 had been completely remediated. If we look at the estimates of the original expert group on defective concrete blocks, estimates that did not fully take into account, for example, social homes, additional private rental homes or non-residential buildings, what that tells us is that the scheme as it is currently in place is failing.
Deputy Ward made clear from his contacts with his own constituents - my colleague, Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, will do the same - that the people who desperately need access to these schemes are simply not getting it. Why is that? Amendment No. 5 points to the single most important reason, which is that it is not a 100% redress scheme. The scheme does not cover the full cost of remediation or the full cost of all of the ancillary charges that homeowners or tenants have to face when remediation is taking place.
Until the scheme addresses that fundamental deficit, it will not work. For example, I have spoken to homeowners who are currently getting their homes remediated in County Clare. These are modest-sized homes, one- and two-person bungalows. They have shortfalls in the region of €60,000. I am talking to families in Donegal who have slightly larger homes, but they are completely standard homes in that part of the country, and they are facing deficits of €100,000. What amendment No. 5 speaks to is the need for the Government to fully investigate the gap that is currently taking place between those folks who are remediating, what the grant provision is and what the actual costs to them are, and then bring forward proposals to address that. We have suggested proposals but we cannot table those amendments because they would place a charge on the State. This is, therefore, the only mechanism to do so.
Amendment No. 6 deals with the other fundamental weakness of the scheme, which is that it is a grant-aid scheme. We all know the Leinster pyrite scheme was not a grant-aid scheme; it was an end-to-end scheme. It has worked exceptionally well, and one of the reasons it never gets debated in this House is that there are not complaints or problems with the primary purpose of the scheme. The reason is that the people in Leinster who were impacted by pyrite contacted the Housing Agency, which sent out competent professionals who inspected the property and agreed with the homeowners the work that needed to be done, and then, through a properly managed framework agreement, the Housing Agency employed the contractors to undertake the work. It is more efficient and cost-effective, and less stressful to the homeowners.
Imagine being a pensioner in Inishowen who is on disability allowance and the Minister's proposition is that the pensioner has to project manage, procure and oversee the demolition and rebuilding of their home. It is a completely ludicrous proposition and we know, from talking to affected homeowners, that it has also led to a significant increase in prices being charged by building contractors and building materials suppliers. An end -to-end scheme is much more sensible. Again, we cannot propose an end-to-end scheme because it would be ruled out of order in accordance with Standing Orders. The purpose of this amendment is, therefore, to require the Minister to examine the merits of such a scheme and bring forward propositions to address it.
The final amendment in this group, amendment No. 7, looks at the other barriers. There are some listed in the amendment but there are more beyond that. As regards the damage threshold, if we are serious about having a scheme that is based on the science, as other Deputies have said, it should not be based on a visual inspection but on the actual scientific evidence of the extent of sulphate attack in the deleterious material, based on engineers' reports and laboratory testing. Likewise, while some of what is now in this amendment is being addressed by way of amendments brought forward by the Minister, the continued absence of staged payments, for example, means that unless people have access to bridging finance or capital of their own, even with the offer of a grant, they may not have the capital to undertake the works and, therefore, will be unable to proceed with the remediation. Again, while we have solutions to that, we cannot table them because they would place a charge on the State. Therefore, we want the Minister to examine these issues in a timely manner, based on the real, lived experience of homeowners in Donegal, Mayo, Clare, Limerick and Sligo, and come back with recommendations to change them.
To conclude on this grouping, if the Minister does not deal, during his term of office, with these fundamental flaws to both the original scheme and the revised scheme of the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, the scheme will continue to fail. Even with the partial increase in the grant cap for those who will be able to avail of it - there are exclusions and we will come to those on section 8 - without these more fundamental changes, raising the grant will not benefit the vast majority of people who are currently locked out, excluded or unable to utilise this scheme and they will continue to be left behind. This is an issue of equity and fairness. If people affected by pyrite in Leinster received 100% redress with an end-to-end scheme and appropriate ancillary grants, I can see no reason the Government can justify treating the people of Donegal, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Sligo and other potentially impacted counties, including Fingal, as we discussed earlier, from exactly the same treatment. Right now, they are not getting equity, fairness or redress. For these reasons, we recommend all three of these amendments to ensure the Minister takes on the task of investigating coming up with credible solutions to problems that were identified back in 2022 when we tabled amendments to rectify those. The Minister's predecessor did not listen. We are hoping the Minister will listen on this occasion.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:27+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-10