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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Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West

The human cost of this whole crisis is absolutely incredible. I visited Donegal many times with my good friend Mary T. Sweeney in relation to this particular crisis. I visited many families in many homes who have shown me chimney stacks falling down and massive gaps in the walls of their houses. We have the incredible situation of children sleeping in rooms on windy, stormy nights in fear that the building is going to collapse. I have no doubt this is leading to significant problems physically, but the mental and psychological scars arising from the defective concrete crisis are immense. It has had an enormous impact on the people of Donegal, Mayo, Clare and other counties. The cost of those scars to society is unquantifiable. I have no doubt that many of those scars are going to wash through this generation of individuals.
I also have no doubt that there is an enormous lack of accountability. There is no doubt in my mind that the system of light-touch regulation we had in this country over many years, which was overseen by Fianna Fáil, in large part allowed this defective concrete to be sold and put into the housing infrastructure of large parts of this country. Indeed, there is still not accountability in terms of the quality of construction products in the market at the moment. This problem is rife, not only in homes but also in much of the other infrastructure in this country.
One of the big frustrations is that the people of Donegal in particular have expended so much energy and effort protesting and trying to get the Government to deliver the responsibility it has for this issue. Yet, here we are in 2025 with a scheme that is deeply flawed and is not 100% redress. There is an enormous gap between the money that is necessary to do the work and the money that is being offered by the Government. This scheme is leaving many families with increased mortgages and debts. It is so difficult to operate that it is impossible for many people to use.
I have no doubt that if the people of Donegal were swapped for the people of south Dublin or some other constituency on the east coast, the Government would take a far different approach. The Government is speaking from both sides of its mouth on defective concrete and redress. It is trying to pretend this is something it is not. The people at the difficult end of this, those living in homes that are crumbling around them and trying to get them rebuilt, know this is not true. My worry is that other people watching this debate, the people from other counties who are not directly affected, will just nod their heads and think it is all right and the problem is being sorted out because there is money being spent on it. I appeal to the Minister opposite to listen to the TDs from Donegal, Mayo and other counties and to put himself in the place of an individual who has spent their life savings investing in building a home and is now seeing that home destroyed by a building material that was allowed onto the market as a result of the lack of regulation by a particular government and is then left to swing, in large part, for big chunks of the cost of that. I appeal to the Government to do the right thing and make sure it delivers 100% redress.

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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