I said I had not intended to contribute to the debate. If I had a problem with the legislation, I would contribute to the debate. I do not vote on stuff that I have not read, if I can help it. I certainly do not purport to vote on matters if I am not here to vote or anything like that. I do not want to go down that road. I want to strike that from the record. I withdraw that comment. It is important that we have proper legislative scrutiny. Pre-legislative scrutiny having been carried out months ago, there is no re…

The CRH share price is remarkably stable and is outperforming other share prices on the ISEQ index. Is this anything to do with the fact that we are going to pass a Bill in this House this week - it is going to be guillotined - that will transfer all the cost of all the remediation of all the dodgy dealings in quarries for decades in Ireland to the Exchequer? There will be no comeback. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has to balance that cost with the cost of providing badly needed funding for Univers…

You need to talk about it.

That is not what the Bill does.

I join with previous speakers in questioning the manner in which this legislation is being put through. I appreciate that Bills have to be passed but we spend so much time on statements and now we have two hours to debate this. I understand the Government needs to save money and I understand the Opposition cannot put forward an amendment that costs money. We all accept that. It is in the Constitution; we have no choice but to accept it. What I do not understand is why the Government would remove the possibility of …

No, but the Minister might be able to explain how it would cost the State more money. The amendment was ruled out on the basis that it would cost the State money. Somebody somewhere thinks it would cost the State more money if we stopped people building a smaller house. The same amount of money would be made available to them but they would build a smaller house with it. It would be cheaper to heat and perhaps better insulated, which may be more in line with what the Minister's Government colleagues in the Green Pa…

Like the previous speaker, I question whether the State is going to get value for money, to the extent that it is going to expend money. Of course, the affected homeowners are going to have to add to the money if they can and if they cannot, I do not what they are going to do because of this ban on downsizing. How is the scheme going to result in value for money if this money is expended on a house that has dodgy foundations and is liable to further crumbling and further subsidence? It strikes me as very skewed log…

I will continue on the issue of 100% redress. The Minister was not at the meeting of the joint committee that day but, certainly, the officials to whom he is now speaking were there when we were repeatedly told that it was not going to be 100% redress simply because of inflation if nothing else. There has been considerable price inflation in the period since the prices for which this scheme is based were drawn up. I have asked the following question many times; I am still waiting for an answer. The Minister is free…

The Minister spoke about the magnitude of the scheme and we cannot but agree with him. It is a major scheme. It is important that it is underpinned by legislation. Deputy McHugh also spoke about the magnitude of the scheme, which is at €2.4 billion. Of course, we are only starting. Does anybody sitting here really think it will cost just €2.4 billion? It will cost an awful lot more than that. At the very least, one might expect that a Bill introducing a scheme that will cost, conservatively, €2.4 billion - I would …

I welcome that the Bill is finally being brought before Dáil Éireann. It is clearly a step in the right direction. Very few of us can imagine what it must be like for those who have been in the situation that affects homeowners in Clare, Mayo, Donegal and other parts of the State. These people are struggling to pay mortgages. Everyone is struggling to pay their mortgage and it is going to get worse next winter. Imagine having that home crumble around you and wonder whether you have any comeback. Where and how does …

There is a large discrepancy in what childcare providers are paid per child between large and very small childcare providers. Large providers are paid more per child. Usually the opposite is the case, for example, in Department of Education capitation fees, because the more children there are in a school, the cheaper it is to heat the school, provide additional staff supports per child and so on. This significant difference has created a real risk of either corporatisation of childcare in Ireland or, at the very le…

I doubt it.

I am slightly perplexed that we are here having the same debate we have year in, year out. Reviews of the Special Criminal Court have been carried out. In 2002 the committee to review the Special Criminal Court, headed by former Supreme Court judge and former Attorney General, Mr. Justice Hederman, reported. The majority in that found that the Special Criminal Court violated the normal rules of evidence, in particular with the opinion evidence of a chief justice being effectively unchallengeable. The whole idea of …

We do not have an appeals process here.

No, they cannot. They certainly cannot.

They certainly can not.

They cannot appeal the decision to direct a trial in the Special Criminal Court. That is the point I am making.

I have no problem with that; it is to try them in a different court.

The Minister is talking nonsense, with the greatest respect.

Accuracy is the very least we can expect from the Department.