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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Richard O'Donoghue (II), Limerick County

In the scheme of things, when you look at projections of what this will cost, it will be 43 houses and roughly €22,000 per house. Given the different-sized houses, it is an average of €22,000 per house. Going by the 29 March deadline, there is a price increase which is between €16 and €20 per square foot, with the inflationary costs that have been caused by different things, including budgetary changes by the Government, the hike in fuel costs, transport costs, rising insulation costs and rising silicone costs. All the different oil-based materials for houses, through different budgets, have created an increase. We are asking for fairness for 43 houses. It is a pittance when looked at in the scheme of it. We are looking at 43 households which have been left behind. The Minister has an opportunity to fix this when it goes to the Seanad. I believe he will look at this.
When you work out what it will cost and based on what it is costing for all the houses to be repaired, it will not even come to 1%. For the sake of 43 houses that went early, as they were instructed to, and are now in a situation where they have a deficit because of inflationary costs, the right thing to do is include everyone. The people who entered the scheme early are the ones who started the whole system going, which showed the Government the faults in the system in the first place. Those people have highlighted it and the Government would not have tabled any of these amendments today except that those houses went first and now the Government has realised the problems that were there. They have given the Government the answer that it needs to fix the houses that are there at the moment.
Why not include them when they are now helping the Government to fix some of the problems that it faces today? Its own advisers, all the different chartered engineers and so on could not give the information in a timely fashion but it has it from the practical experiences from the 43 houses. The Minister should use that practical experience, should cover those 43 houses and should bring them into the same scheme. Deputies Ward and Ó Broin have been saying it. Everyone here has been saying it and people have been saying it in the right context, that everyone understands. The Minister and I know it is the right thing to do.

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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