I move amendment No. 22: In page 7, line 37, after “withdrawn” to insert the following: "if the applicant fails to comply within 30 days of a written request, and only after a further reminder has been issued and a period of 14 additional days has elapsed". Amendment 22 is vital to protect homeowners who have been unfairly penalised by rigid timelines. It ensures no one can be removed from the scheme without first receiving a clear written request and a full 30-day response period, followed by an additional 14-day …

I will give the Minister the figure. Forty-three families were left behind. Deputy Mac Lochlainn and I have dealt with these families. We have had meetings with them where they have come to us and said they did nothing wrong. They moved and were told to do this and this is what they did. They ask why they cannot get their money. There is a difference of a month between them and their neighbours who will get their 10%. It is a multibillion euro scheme and for under €1 million, 43 families, if they were at the top, a…

Does that mean the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, was wrong when he said what he said? Was he giving misinformation? As far as the 43 families are concerned, they were told by the housing Minister to go and get it done and they would not be left behind. That is what he said. Those were his words. People trusted this and 43 people are now excluded at a cost that would be minimal. It would be fair to pay them.

I move amendment No. 27: In page 9, between lines 23 and 24, to insert the following: “(14) Where a designated local authority refuses to recognise an individual as a relevant owner under subsection (4A), the individual shall be entitled to appeal such refusal under Part 5.”. No applicant can be blocked from the scheme without recourse. The amendment gives anyone who is refused to be recognised as a relevant owner a clear right to appeal, protecting families from arbitrary decisions and ensuring they get the suppor…

I move amendment No. 33: In page 10, to delete lines 19 and 20 and substitute the following: “section 17A(6)(a), the relevant owner may make applications for payment of an increased grant under subsection (1), as justified by circumstances.”. Amendment No. 33 ensures that relevant owners, including the 43 homeowners left behind by the March 2024 cut-off, can apply for an increased grant when circumstances justify it. It guarantees that no eligible homeowner is left behind and that the scheme responds fairly to the …

The law of the land is clear. Section 39(10)(b) of the defective concrete blocks Act 2022 sets out the powers of the appeals board. It may direct the Housing Agency or a local authority to reconsider a decision in line with the board's directions or it may replace the decision entirely with a new determination. That is what the Oireachtas intended. That is the safeguard homeowners were told they had but in place is a safeguard that is an absolute fiction. Of the appeals heard so far, the panel has found serious and…

My constituents are coming into the office all the time and are contacting us. Their lives are being determined by the decisions of the Housing Agency as to whether they can rebuild their house and move on with their lives. When they request evidence behind the life-changing decisions, they receive black pages with ink all over them. It is heavily redacted. FOI was sought and refused and then overturned by the Information Commissioner. This is not transparency. Even more alarming is the Housing Agency record retent…

It is disappointing but, sadly, not surprising that there is so little mention of the defective concrete crisis in the new housing plan. It is a crisis that has impacted my native County Donegal and many countries throughout the whole country, and worse, it is referred in this to as a legacy issue. This is far from a legacy issue. It is alive and present and persistent. It is happening right now, and inaction will guarantee that this will continue into the future. It is a lived reality every single day for many of …

Hear, hear.

I stand today not only as a TD, but as someone who is directly affected by this. This is a Government-created situation. It happened because of a lack of checks on quarries. If this had been done properly, we would not be facing this situation. I speak with the anger of a father who has watched his home crumble. I speak with the frustration of the people who contact me every day and who cannot take one more sleepless night worrying whether the Bison slab over their heads will come down and injure or kill their chil…

As the Tánaiste knows, I am living this experience so I can tell him at first hand what is happening on the ground. There is a humanitarian crisis in Mayo and a potential humanitarian crisis in Wexford and Limerick. Yesterday, a pyrrhotite issue emerged in Wexford. Geographically, we are at opposite ends of the country but we have the same problem. Within a mile of where I live, there are 200 houses currently affected. If the scheme happened in the morning, we would have absolutely nowhere for the people to go, and…

I will give the Tánaiste a quick example. Solomons Court in Letterkenny has 1,400 houses and every single one of them has defective concrete. Some 15 have been remediated. With some, that involved full demolition and with others, it was partial remediation. However, the majority of people there are stuck because they are in a town and if 500 of them want to go into this scheme and get on with their lives - they have been living this for the last 12 to 13 years - there is absolutely nowhere for them to go. We have t…

As we know, today is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. It is unbelievable that worldwide a woman is killed every ten minutes by an intimate partner or family member. Although we may think Ireland is a progressive country, femicide continues to take the lives of many women and girls across our country with no sign of any real progress. A total of 35% of women in Ireland have experienced abuse from an intimate partner. That is more than one in three, which is well above the EU average o…

Once again, the Government has waived pre-legislative scrutiny on the defective concrete Bill. On 14 June 2022, the Taoiseach said, we will get on with it. With that attitude, 205 homes have been partially built in Donegal; 579 have works ongoing and 43 homes have been completely abandoned. There are 3,000 applications, most of which are stuck, including mine. I have been stuck in this scheme for five years and cannot progress. I agreed with the Minister, Deputy Browne, that scrutiny on caps, rates and amendments w…

I thank my colleagues Deputies Paul Murphy and Richard Boyd Barrett and their staff for bringing forward this extremely important detailed motion. I am happy to cosign and support this motion and its calls for the Government to urgently progress this Bill on Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and include a ban on trade services. There is supposedly a ceasefire in Gaza. Let us be honest: if what is happening in Palestine today were to happen anywhere else, there would be outrage. The Palesti…

I would be grateful if the Minister would let me know whether he plans to review the employment permits process during his term as Minister. The process of applying for a permit can be slow at times and I would like to know his plan to address this. Has the Department considered streamlining this process via the visa process?

I have assisted my constituents in applying and reapplying for employment permits in recent months. The process can sometimes be unnecessarily long, particularly in the case of employment permit appeals. At the moment appeals in respect of this permit take around five months via the Department, which is a very long time. The current system of people having to wait for their employment permit to be granted before they can apply for the visa is inefficient and causes unnecessary delays. It does not make sense for the…

With full employment, employers who are relying heavily on employment permits have found it increasingly difficult in recent years to find people to fill important roles. It is clear that an efficient system is required for employers to address the labour shortage to allow them to plan, recruit and maintain their business. Is the Department working with employers to ensure the current system is workable for them? Can the Department improve communications with employers regarding specific applications? Employers lac…

I fully support this motion and its calls for the Government to stop price hikes to petrol and diesel and to end the penalty imposed on people who cannot afford to pay motor tax in one single payment and the proposed toll increase planned for January 2026. It is an extremely expensive time to be a motorist, especially in rural areas like Donegal, where we are forced to drive due to the lack of public transport and where the only form of public transport we have is a bus. Anyone without a car in rural Ireland faces …

Yesterday, Engineers Ireland ran a training course for engineers on IS 465, a standard, as the Government knows, that is outdated, discredited and currently under review. I met with Damien Owens, the director general of Engineers Ireland, and spoke to engineers who did not even know the standard was being reviewed. They are being trained to use documents that Government-commissioned research from Geological Survey Ireland has proven to be scientifically wrong. The damage in these homes is caused by internal sulphat…