Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-10
============================================================

James Browne (FF), Wexford

I will address amendments Nos. 22 and 46, tabled by Deputy Charles Ward. Amendment No. 22 proposes that a designated local authority should allow 30 days for an applicant to reply to a request for further information from the designated local authority relating to an application for an increase in the remediation option grant. It then requires a designated local authority to issue a reminder after this period has elapsed and allows a further 14 days for the applicant to respond before it considers the application to be withdrawn. Amendment No. 46 proposes the same follow-up period to be given to an application for an updated remediation option grant where the Housing Agency requests additional information. The Bill allows the form and manner for these requests for further information to be set out in regulations. Therefore, the additional requirement is not necessary. In any case, it would place an additional administrative burden on designated local authorities and the Housing Agency in processing applications for an increase in remediation option grants and an updated remediation option grant under the Bill.
For those reasons, I cannot accept the amendments.
As the Deputies are aware and understand, the date of 29 March 2024 was chosen as it is the same date that my Department received the most recent cost report from Society of Chartered Surveyors of Ireland. This cost report informed the work of the expert group in recommending the increase in scheme cap and rates. That included an additional uplift for the passage of time to when they were applied in October and November 2024. Homeowners who had completed remediation works prior to this stage were provided for in the first set of scheme cap and rates that were informed by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland 2023 cost report.

---

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/2025-12-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:27+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-10