I am not going to continue to be shouted down. I certainly will not be bullied by the Deputy in this House. I should be allowed to respond, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I have tabled a Government countermotion-----

He finds it difficult to contain himself.

I did not know I had that effect on the Deputy.

I am not sure about that either.

Deputy Ó Broin is out of order.

I gave up on nobody. On a point of order-----

Unfortunately a Leas-Cheann Comhairle-----

Through the Chair, absolutely. What I have attempted to do this evening is to put forward some of the policies that are taking hold and are working. I will try again to restate the facts. The first home scheme is going to help thousands of people who are in a rental trap and who have saved and are working hard to be able to own their own home at an affordable rate that is not a second mortgage. Hundreds already have responded to this. The first applications are being approved and on top of that we are going to deli…

-----that I have not been able to answer the charges that have been put forward by some of the Deputies opposite, but that probably suits them.

I did not say that.

Sorry.

Gabhaim míle buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach and leis the Senators who are here as well. As I said in the Dáil, the defective concrete block disaster has haunted the lives of people in Donegal, Mayo and beyond for far too long. People who built and bought family homes have had to watch those same homes crumble before their eyes while others potentially face that prospect. With no other help available, they turned to the State for support. When the support was introduced and was found wanting, they took th…

I thank all Senators for their contributions. I have taken a detailed note of all contributions. I will, during the course of Committee Stage, get an opportunity to respond to many of them. This legislation, as Senator Blaney rightly said, has not just come about in the past two months. It follows more than two years of direct engagement with homeowners through the various fora we have set up, my meetings directly with them, my own officials, the Housing Agency and the liaison group chaired by Mr. John O'Connor and…

I did.

I am just trying to be helpful to the Senator. Amendments Nos. 71, 72, 81, 94, 106, 111 and 150 were accepted. Perhaps not all of them were Deputy Pringle's, however, a number of them were and his name was on a number of them. I welcomed his engagement on it, in fairness. It is not a criticism. It just shows that we accepted amendments in the Dáil and I would expect that if there are reasonable amendments that we can work in without delaying the enactment of the legislation, we will absolutely be very open to doing…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce this Bill and thank Members for facilitating the passage of this important substitute consent legislation through the Houses in advance of the summer recess. The purpose of the Bill is to amend the Planning and Development Act 2000, as relating to substitute consent procedures. Substitute consent is a process that concerns applications seeking to regularise existing developments requiring retrospective environmental im…

I do not rule on amendments.

I thank colleagues for their contributions. I will deal with a couple of items regarding where we were in June 2020 and where we are now. All Deputies will recognise that there have been major changes to the previous defective blocks scheme. It is important for the House that we set some of those changes out. I thank all the homeowners from all the affected counties for their constructive engagement on a difficult, complex issue. We are committed to making the scheme work for them, which is why we need to ground th…

I did not interrupt any Deputy.

Tuigim é sin. I am saying that a number of matters were raised by this amendment and I would like the opportunity to address some of the points that have been raised, particularly relating to foundations and guarantees of works. I will be brief. I do not want to detain people for longer than they need to be. The grant options have been drastically changed and rightly so. The estimated cost of this revised scheme is €2.7 billion, which is a significant intervention by the State on behalf of residents and homeowners,…