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

It is hard to believe that it is 12 years since this crisis started to unfold. It is hard to believe that we still do not know how many homes, flats, offices, shops, farm buildings, etc., are impacted in the likes of Donegal or Mayo. It also is hard to believe there have been four attempts at rewriting this scheme over that period and yet we are still not at a scheme that is fit for purpose.
This amendment speaks to the fact that so many people are snookered and have been left without any real options at the moment. In many of the situations people cannot sell or are struggling to get insurance and people are struggling to get mortgages currently because of the defective blocks and because capacity is being swallowed up with so many people being in such difficulties.
Driving around Donegal I was struck that every second building, house, council building, crèche, or business was pointed out to me as the buildings with the cracks that are starting to get worse and worse. Because of that, many people are struggling to get accommodation. When there is a capacity problem of accommodation, you have inflation. This means that families are snookered even trying to get alternative accommodation for themselves in this regard. It is really important that the Government would get creative in ensuring first that there is extra capacity in terms of combination options for people and second that there are some efforts to create downward pressure on the cost of that accommodation to people. There is a big inflationary aspect for people who are looking to get works done. Some of that is happening because of the pressure on the limited capacity but some of that is happening due to the way the money is being paid out. Some builders are front-loading the costs so that they get the money at the start of the process and then have to wait long periods of time to get paid out as well. I support this amendment and I ask that the Government supports it as well.

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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