With respect, no amount of reassurance, avoidance or accountability can disguise these facts. Engineers are being trained on a standard that the State's own research has proven is wrong. The Housing Agency employs these engineers. They must use this training to make decisions about people's homes and people's lives. It is not a technical issue; it is an ethical and legal one. The direct effect is families living in unsafe homes. They are left to appeal and left in limbo. The Government cannot claim distance from En…

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this very important Bill. I fully support the Bill, which would mandate all schools to adopt a cost-conscious uniform policy. As a parent, I have seen the cost of school uniforms increase massively over the years. It used to be the case that not so long ago we would have been able to buy one or two branded items such as a school jumper or a school tie. Other items such as polo shirts, trousers or shoes could be bought at any shop if they were the right colour. This allowed mul…

It is hard not to feel completely hopeless about the fishing industry at the moment. What was once a prosperous industry is now facing complete collapse. It is utter devastation, as the Minister of State is well aware. The numbers have been outlined multiple times already, but it is important they are repeated until we get to grips with what we are facing and its potential impact. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea has advised the following cuts, starting next year: a 70% cut in mackerel, a 41…

When the original defective concrete blocks, DCB, scheme was in operation, apartments in multi-unit developments were eligible. Then, in 2022, eligibility was narrowed to dwelling houses, single ownerships excluding buildings with shared structural or common elements, apartments, duplexes and multi-unit blocks. These dwellings contain the same defective materials as a detached or semi-detached house. The exclusion demonstrates a serious failure in how the scheme is being managed. The Government's amendment to my mo…

I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — chartered engineers employed or contracted by the Housing Agency act as agents of the State, exercising statutory functions that determine the rights of homeowners, and that the Government remains legally and constitutionally accountable for their decisions, including unlawful downgrades from full to partial remediation; — appeals against such downgrades have been left unresolved for over two years, leaving families in unsafe homes, in breach of the State's duty to provide t…

I wish to address the remarks of the Minister of State, Deputy McConalogue, about how he has got this "to where it is today". I will clarify where it is today. We have a scheme right now that has 74 houses that are completed. Another 70 have received outer-leaf remediation work only and still retain the blockwork. This amounts to approximately 140 houses, half of which will have to be redone at great expense to the Exchequer. The Minister of State failed to mention that 300 houses that are on the scheme are commenc…

I am glad Charlie McConalogue is here in the Chamber because he is the man I want to talk to. Today across the country, particularly in Donegal, we have got a budget that is an absolute insult to working people - a nothing budget for people. What kind of message does it send out to working people when we have given them absolutely nothing? There are no measures to prevent homelessness in this budget. As we speak 16,353 people, including 5,000 children, are homeless in this country. In our own county, Donegal, poten…

When the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, presented this budget, he said we were "making the best possible use of the resources available to invest in our future and to strengthen our foundations." I did not know whether to laugh or cry at that. As the House can imagine, coming from Donegal, we are living with foundations and houses that are crumbling down around us. We are totally abandoned. How can the Government invest in the future when it has left Donegal so far behind, with a defective concrete crisis and a fishing …

The Government must abolish the concrete levy for families rebuilding their homes. This is a priority. Homeowners cannot be punished because it is not their fault. The level of injustice cannot be ignored, especially when we are faced with so many examples of Government overspend. The Government has handled this crisis in a completely fiscally irresponsible way. Despite overwhelming scientific evidence, the Government persists in offering remediation when only a full demolition will do. If we go back to remediation…

Over 10,000 unpaid carers in Donegal are awaiting next week’s budget in the hope they will finally receive long overdue recognition for the difficult and important work they do every single day. The lack of respect for people who provide an essential service and save the State over €20 billion a year is staggering. Most of us, in our lifetime, will either become carers or be cared for. This is a reality we do not realise until we are faced with the unrelenting responsibility of becoming a carer. Nobody expects to b…

It is a disgrace that we now face into October and legislation regarding retrospective payments for homeowners under the defective concrete scheme still has not been published despite the Taoiseach's housing Minister in June saying it would be. I expect the funds will be made available in the Government's budget next week, and if the Government fails to properly address this crisis yet again it will have failed impacted homeowners once again. In July, I informed the Taoiseach that the houses in Elm Park, Buncrana, …

They just need a date.

It is shocking that in this day and age that there is still no significant investment in regional rail in the north west. People in Inishowen who travel to Letterkenny or Donegal town must travel by bus. I know an 82-year-old man who travels on a bus to Donegal town to see a relative. He is on the bus for the guts of two hours. Many of my constituents do this and are travelling long distances. It is outrageous. The lack of sufficient healthcare is not addressed. There is a lack of transport. There is a litany of ne…

Donegal is the only county in the whole of Ireland in which the rail network was removed. We are so far behind that it will take billions of euro to get us up to date. When the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, was Minister for housing, he turned his back to us. I ask him, as Minister for Transport, not to turn his back on Donegal again.

Will the lack of infrastructure investment in Donegal be addressed in any way in the budget next week?

I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this motion today. I fully support it, particularly its call for budget 2026 to commit €630 million towards measures to relieve child poverty and homelessness, as well as its call on the Government to introduce a total ban on evictions of children into homelessness, and the legislation to prioritise housing needs of homeless families. As a member of the children's committee, it has been devastating to hear about the rising levels of child poverty in this country. The Ch…

I have written to the Minister, Deputy Heydon, regarding the closure of the ISPCA's animal centre in Donegal, a devastating decision that has detrimental animal welfare effects in the north-west region. Just over a week ago in Donegal, we saw 14 dogs rescued from horrific conditions but these dogs have nowhere to go. They will travel a considerable distance to reach the nearest facility, which means longer transport times for distressed, injured and abandoned animals, raising serious questions about their welfare a…

I am not going to mince my words. The defective concrete scandal is a national emergency the Minister's Government wilfully mismanaged for over a decade. The Government has worked hard to fool the public and portray that we are being looked after, but the truth is we are now in the second failed scheme. My staff see suicidal ideation every week in our office. The uncertainty and the feeling of abandonment in this crisis has caused this. Some 40% of homeowners are living with severe depression. This is the reality a…

We have unethical engineering going on in this scheme. That cannot be denied. A number of people were downgraded. They were granted full demolition. An engineer came out, did their job, examined it and then it was passed over to the Housing Agency. Someone in the agency looked at that fellow engineer's work and then downgraded it. This is unethical. It is unethical engineering. What is going on has been going on for some time. We suspect that this is widespread and that it will continue. How can we have engineers d…

September is a very exciting and important month for many children as they return to school. For some, however, the excitement has been unfairly and cruelly stripped away as their parents struggle to find appropriate school places for them in their localities. As a parent, I cannot imagine the heartbreak facing parents who are unable to secure such places for their children. The Minister for Education has declined to provide the exact number of children with additional needs awaiting school places for the academic …