Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks (Amendment) Bill 2025: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-11
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Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel

I thank the Minister. It can be hard to understand the devastation this crisis has caused to entire communities. I went to Malin Head earlier this year with Councillor Ali Farren to see the homes that were torn apart by defective concrete blocks in County Donegal. It really is a blight on the landscape. Every single home one looks at in the distance has been affected. It has had a heartbreaking impact for families and communities, and it has shamelessly been going on for far too long. I saw cracks widening, walls failing, chimneys teetering on the roofs above children's bedrooms and families living with that fear and constant uncertainty about their physical safety in their homes. That has caused such a severe emotional weight that people are carrying constantly. It is causing anxiety, exhaustion and worry about children’s safety and their financial futures. Imagine not knowing if the place you bought - your forever home, a place that was supposed to guarantee your future security - might literally crumble and fall down around you.
People are worried about the damp going into their homes. They cannot open their windows anymore because the walls have moved so much that they cannot actually open any windows into their homes. The fact of the matter is the State has a responsibility to protect people and not abandon them. The State simply has not acted quickly enough. We have seen homeowners who did nothing wrong and yet they are not receiving the full, fair and accessible redress that they deserve. There should be no small print and there should be no loopholes. Families have been left to struggle with these really complex bureaucratic procedures to draw down supports or shoulder massive costs. These families face major expenses. The payment caps do not reflect the reality of today's building costs. Inflation has driven up construction prices way beyond what the scheme allows, leaving shortfalls up to €100,000 for some people, and where is that money going to come from? How can ordinary families afford €100,000? I am also a bit disappointed that the adjacent building is only limited to vulnerable people. I do not understand why we cannot have side-by-side building for all families and for all households. Instead, we have a situation where people are paying rent. I know the rent can be provided, but they are paying to go to live in another house that has been maybe not as badly affected or the crisis for that defective block is not as severe, but they are paying to go to live in a defective house somewhere else while they tear down and build up their own house. There is no logic to it. I do not see why side by side should not be approved for all homes.
I think it is also important to acknowledge how Donegal and parts of the west have been treated differently. The cases of pyrite in Leinster were dealt with. The State stepped up and homeowners were not abandoned. Responsibility was taken, and the scheme that was offered worked well for families. Yet, like in so many cases with poor Donegal, it is the forgotten cousin that gets treated like a second-class citizen. We have seen light-touch regulation and that was the problem here. None of these families are responsible for what happened to their homes. They are not responsible for the blocks that came out of the quarries. What about those quarries? Are inspections under way? Are blocks still being drawn from the same quarries? Do we know that those quarries are now sustainable and have effective blocks? I was disappointed that Charles Ward's amendment relating to a public inquiry into the regulatory failures that allowed this scandal to take place was shot down yesterday. We need to know what went wrong because this is a national scandal and I think we need to be very clear about that. Families cannot be kept waiting while their homes deteriorate and their well-being suffers, and we need to act with urgency.

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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