State Responsibility for Foundation Retention Risk in Defective Concrete Homes: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-24
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Charles Ward (RDR), Donegal

I thank my colleagues who stood with me today and those who took the time to go beyond the briefing material and the political framing and had the empathy to understand what families are living through on the ground. Before we vote, I want to speak plainly, not in a language of schemes, standards or reassurance, but in a language that explains what is happening to people on the ground. I have sat in homes where families are in this crisis, and I have heard things that have never appeared in reports. People are lying awake at night wondering if their home is safe. Parents are trying to hide this fear from their children. Families are trying to hold ordinary life together while carrying on in an uncertainty that they did not create. This is the reality. There is no data and there are no summaries and no briefing. It is reality.
No homeowner or child caused this crisis, yet they are the ones that are carrying it. We are told the scheme is improving. We are told progress is being made, but uncertainty is still in people's homes. It is still at the kitchen table, and it is still in their lives. I ask the House one question. Who is carrying the uncertainty? It is not being carried in here.
It has been carried elsewhere by the families, by the children. People who stood should never have been asked to carry this burden at all. Never should this have happened.
I recognise that many Members will vote under party instruction, but this Chamber has also seen Members break that. I ask that safety and security, and the future of children and their families, be on Deputies' conscience when they are voting. They have to go back to their constituents when it is in their area, and tell them why they did not vote to help. I hope Deputies will realise in the years to come what has gone on and that we have a catastrophic situation on our hands. The responsibility for this cannot be ignored. The time is now. We have to address this. There is a choice before us, it is a responsibility we cannot keep avoiding: families or system. I am clear. The uncertainty does not belong in family homes. This belongs now to the State. It is the State that has a responsibility to carry this burden, not the families, the people who did nothing wrong or the children growing up underneath the shadow of the defective concrete. When the bell rings for the vote this evening, this House will decide something very simple: where the burden sits. That decision does not end with this vote; it begins there. I stand with the families, like all my colleagues in opposition today who have stood. I say to the homeowners that we are fighting for them night and day and we will not forget. I will not move the burden onto those who did not create it. I am asking this House to remember where the weight of this situation has occurred. The Government and the State have a responsibility.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-24