Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks (Amendment) Bill 2025: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-11 ============================================================ Niall Blaney (FF), Agricultural Panel The Minister is very welcome to the House. I thank him and his officials for all the work that has gone into the scheme. A lot of work was done in the last term under the previous Minister and now I welcome the changes the Minister is announcing today. It is worthwhile having a refresher on the journey we have come on in dealing with this issue on the ground. We all took an awful lot of flak in this House and the other House, especially in Donegal. We had many Oireachtas Members calling for the scheme to be scrapped as it was a waste of time. If we had taken their advice, those 3,511 online registrations would not be started today. Those 812 commencements that have been notified to homeowners would not be started today. Those 583 houses that are now on their way in Donegal would not be started today. The 229 houses in Donegal that are completed would not have been started. Thanks to those who stood by in government and stayed with the journey we took, and to the Ministers and officials, there are 229 families in Donegal who are getting ready for Christmas in brand new houses and are very happy in that position. Most of them got 100% redress. That has to go on the record strongly because you are constantly challenged in government and rightly so, but sometimes the spoof that is spun out of these Houses is a little hard to take. If some of the spoofers had their way, there would be a whole lot of people in Donegal sitting in crumbling houses that might even have fallen on them on at this stage. Thanks to the efforts and work that has gone on thus far, there is real progress in Donegal we can report. That said, there are still issues with the scheme. Some of those I have brought to the Minister’s attention and I am delighted he is dealing with them, especially for those disabled families. I know a number of them in Donegal. One of them very close to me is Seán Gibbons and Louise, his disabled child. Due to the recommendations the Minister has in this part of the legislation they will in the new year be able to move on and build their house side by side. That is very welcome. I hope there is enough flexibility there for all the vulnerable families. Some fathers will take their children upstairs at night and one boy got adaptations and that. I hope we have enough flexibility to make sure that for all these people something as simple as a doctor or occupational therapist’s recommendation will get them through the hoops and get them qualified for the scheme. That is a massive piece of work for those who are in an awful situation of not having a house to occupy while their new house is being built. There are still some outstanding issues and it would be remiss of me not to mention them. There are people who built very big houses and if they want the 100% scheme they will have to downsize. They are still paying mortgages for the large house they built originally. They are at a loss. It is a difficult call but it is something I ask the Minister to take into consideration again. They are at a loss and are as entitled to 100% as anybody else. With me it is 2,500 sq. ft. and I can probably get my house built and there are cases of it in Donegal. Despite what some said in the other House last night, there are houses of 2,500 sq. ft. getting built with 100% grants in Donegal. Whether I am at 1,000 sq. ft. or 1,500 sq. ft., if I had to reduce my house to 2,500 sq. ft. from, say, 3,500 sq. ft. or 4,500 sq. ft. I am still paying the mortgage for the 4,500 sq. ft. house and am expected to live in a house of 2,500 sq. ft. There is a disadvantage there. External walls and the boundaries of houses and garages are not included in the scheme but the same issues pertain. I would like the Minister to also have a look at those situations. The other situation arising relates to the mortgageability and the insurability of the houses. The issue raising its head is that if I want to sell my house in Donegal tomorrow I am required to get it tested. If it is tested and it shows sulphates that are above the levels, and in some cases well above the levels, but there is enough cement that the sulphates are not acting – meaning the house is not showing any signs of cracking because there was enough cement in my blocks – I still will not be able to sell my house because I am above the limits. Apparently something similar happened in Wales decades ago. I have sent examples of it to the Minister’s Department. There, a sliding scale was put in where apart from just the science and engineering, physical inspections would take place on a sliding scale where the determination of an engineer would say whether a house was good to go. We need something similar for the market in Donegal and eventually across the other counties as well. If we do not, the market is in real bother. I ask the Minister to have a look at the information I put in there when he gets the opportunity. I also welcome the Bill’s treatment of conjoined dwellings. With my engineering hat on, the obvious thing with all these houses is that for whatever reason the south-west side of a house is the side affected first and the side that is affected the most. Where you have a conjoined house it is the house on the south-west side that is affected and the north-east side is least affected, so it is practical and very welcome. We have come a long way with this scheme. There has been a lot of emotion and a lot of difficult nights spent in houses across Donegal. Despite all that has been said in the lower House this scheme, which is not perfect yet, is a long way from where we were six or seven years ago. A lot of families are getting a resolution here and I commend the Bill to the House. --- 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/seanad/2025-12-11/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:27+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-11