The Minister has inherited responsibility for dealing with this deep scandal and crisis. Even if he does not accept our amendments, I ask him to please listen and reflect on everything we will tell him because they are absolute facts from the ground. I can speak with authority about Donegal and other colleagues can speak about their counties. I know for a fact that some of the Minister's colleagues are telling him the scheme is working. As I have said to other people, that is their view. They are telling the Minister the scheme is fine, it is grand and he just needs to tinker around the edges, and that is what this legislation he has brought before the Houses is doing. Let me tell the Minister some home truths. The scheme works for a minority of people with an age profile probably in their 40s and 50s. They are people who can access €40,000, €50,000, €60,000, or maybe a bit more, and they may have family who are in the building game and they can project manage it. They have the energy to do it. It works for a minority of people who are willing and will say they will put €50,000, €60,000, €70,000 or €80,000 in. However, a large majority of the homeowners have a different age profile or just cannot afford the sum of money it would take. I have told the Minister a story and I will tell him it again because we have to humanise these things. Sometimes it is about statistics and data. I met a man at the site of his previous house, which had been demolished. All of his family memories were gone, packed into storage in the garage beside the house. As the Minister knows, garages are not included in this scheme. This man was traumatised. Then he told me about the choices he had to make when he went to the bank because the gap was huge. This is why I ask the Minister to please agree to amendment No. 4. The man had a mortgage with about six years left and, as I recall, the repayments were €900 per month. It is a great place to be in life, is it not? You are nearly there, having worked hard all of your life, which is the dream, and then maybe you can enjoy your retirement. That is what we all signed up for. He was told by his bank that the gap is almost €200,000. That is what he has to find and he is getting on with it. Does the Minister want to know what the mortgage repayment is now? It is €1,800, double what it was and it will be for 21 years. He will be still be paying his mortgage when he is a very old man. That is just pure cruelty and it is just one story. I could talk for the rest of the time allocated tonight about other stories. I ask the Minister to please listen to us. This is cruelty. The Minister rightly listened to the voices of pyrite campaigners in Dublin and north Leinster. They were tremendous campaigners. The Minister put in place a scheme and, as Deputy Ó Broin said, no one in here is complaining about that scheme. It is 100% redress and it is delivered by the State. The State takes responsibility for the project management, tendering and all of those engagements. Why on earth has the Minister been so cruel? Why have the officials in his Department been so cruel that they believe we have to have a different standard than the rest of the country? Why are our people tortured with bureaucracy and with having to find the amounts of money required? I will never forget the last time legislation on this came through this House in 2022. It was rammed through with no scrutiny. There was one day, thanks to the members of the committee who got the Bill, to discuss it. I think it was maybe for three or four hours. That was what was called "scrutiny" of a huge Bill. The campaigners up there in the Public Gallery were utterly traumatised. They were banging on the screens. They could not believe what they were seeing. I will never forget the look on their faces outside and in the days afterwards because they were absolutely betrayed. It was a scheme that they warned the Minister was deficient. This is about equality for victims. When I have addressed parliamentary questions to the Minister and his predecessor, the senior officials write the responses. We know that. In the responses, the Minister says it is 100% redress based on the SCSI, costing. I will tell the Minister another home truth now. The Minister's predecessor, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, asked the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland to do a report on the costings in the regions affected. That report was requested in 2023 and the report was published in March 2024. Since then, which is pretty much two years, there has been a huge increase in costings. I had to have a protracted engagement with the Department, by the way. The Ceann Comhairle's office had to intervene to ensure I could squeeze the answer out of the Minister. The Minister has not asked SCSI to do fresh costings, and I know why. If the Minister does that, the logic will follow that he will have to put more money on the table and make the scheme worth more. I am convinced that the political advice given by the then Attorney General, Paul Gallagher, which is in the public domain, was about saving money. I am convinced that advice was that a scheme based on real science where houses were to be knocked down, and about equality between people all around Ireland who were victims, was not to be progressed. We are asking the Minister to accept amendments Nos. 5 to 7, inclusive. If he decides for political reasons tonight to press on with this as happened in 2022, I ask him as a human being to go away and reflect. If the Minister politically makes a decision to ram this through, not accept amendments and believe that his scheme is working, I ask him to reflect as a human being and to look in the mirror and ask himself if it is right to leave aside that man I told him about earlier who will be paying a double mortgage for the rest of his days, into his old age. How on earth is that 100% redress? How dare anybody write a reply to a parliamentary question for the Minister or come before an Oireachtas committee and tell us that is 100% redress? For God's sake, we are talking here about large numbers of families whose lives have been destroyed. The horror of your house falling apart around you and the trauma for your children is all you and your wife or partner will talk about. There are marriages destroyed, families destroyed, lives destroyed. All we are asking is that every victim have a real chance to rebuild their lives and for that to be managed by the State without distress. This involves it being project managed, the State dealing with the contractors and getting a fair price. This scheme, however, is designed to exclude people. Any public representative from Donegal who tells the Minister that this scheme is working is doing a huge disservice to our people. They did not listen to our people. They must only have friends who are wealthy because it is wrong. Imagine a scheme that is not based on the worst houses, the most dangerous houses, getting repaired first. The current scheme is based on who can access money to rebuild their homes. That is madness. If your house is black with mould - we have seen the videos repeatedly - if the blocks are falling down and a danger to your family and children, or if you are in terror of the latest named storm that is coming along, that does not matter. You only need to have enough money in your pocket to make the scheme work. Whatever decision the Minister makes tonight - we will have votes - I am asking him to go away and reflect. I am asking him to hear us. Other colleagues will talk about their counties. These amendments go to the core of the issue. They ask the Minister to do evidence-based research. They ask him to look at the facts on the ground. They ask him to stare the truth in the face and do what is right. That is what these amendments do and I am asking him, please, to not vote them down. He will be in that chair for a while and I will tell him something now. If he does what he did in 2022 and rams deficient legislation through again and does not listen to us, I can promise him that either he or the next person in his office will be here again because the Government will have to bring in legislation that is fair and just. This scheme is going to hit the rocks. People are going to be left behind. We will not stand for it and we will be back here again. Either the Minister does the right thing now or he, or the person who replace him, will come back and do the right thing in a year or two years. I will make the Minister that promise. When we are old men and we sit down together and reflect on our days in politics, the Minister will tell me I was right in what I have said here.

Sentiment score: -0.01

What we have in Donegal in terms of housing is a perfect storm. We have the same issues as everywhere else around the State. There was a period of ten or 11 years where virtually no social housing was built in Donegal. Therefore, the private rental sector took on that role through the rental accommodation scheme and the housing assistance payment. We are now playing catch up. All of those private rental properties were taken up by that failure in that period from 2010 to 2021, which was an 11-year period. I will give an example. There were more social houses delivered in Donegal in one year in 2002 than in the 11 years since 2010 to 2021. That was a disastrous period and a disastrous policy. House prices in the county also have gone through the roof relative to income and the cost of rent has gone through the roof. People who work in good jobs, for example a couple with good employment, cannot get a mortgage from the banks. Rent is going through the roof. Rent has doubled in Donegal in the last five or six years. It has really doubled. It is so difficult to find rental property. It is heartbreaking when somebody is told that their rented house is going to be sold and they have to find somewhere else. They cannot find anywhere else. It is pure desperation. We have all of that and defective blocks too. I cannot stress how important this proposal is from Deputy Doherty. As the Deputy has pointed out clearly that it has been done for another humanitarian crisis, why can it not be done for our humanitarian crisis? It could not be more simple. We have a perfect storm housing crisis. We desperately need to free up properties to be used for families while their homes are being rebuilt. I urge the Minister of State to accept this amendment.

Sentiment score: -0.09

I want to deal with the fact that over a year ago we learned that the then Minister, Deputy O'Brien, was going to move on the report from the SCSI and increase the cap by 10%. Immediately, there was an issue that the early movers, namely that those who were already going through the scheme, were going to be left behind. It was made clear that this would apply retrospectively. However, it would require amendments to the legislation. I have to observe, following the exchange between Deputy Doherty and the Minister of State, that we clearly have a Department of housing that is allowed to do what it wants with no political direction. I will never understand how it took over a year to bring this legislation here. In our party we would have been able to draft that legislation within hours. This is not complex legislation. It is applying an increased cap retrospectively to those going through the scheme. There is no political leadership in the Department of housing and the officials will just do what they want. They are not accountable. They write the script for the Minister and they write the replies to parliamentary questions. I could show the Minister of State one reply and then show him another. I will give him an example to do with IS 465 and the application of it by the Housing Agency. The agency was overruling the recommendation of engineers who were on the Engineers Ireland list. These qualified engineers acting on behalf of the families recommended demolition and were overruled by the Housing Agency. When this was questioned, the agency said it was applying IS 465. We all said the emerging evidence was that standard had no credibility and that it was a bad decision the agency was making. I tabled a parliamentary question to the Minister and the officials said they were applying IS 465 in proper order. They were looking at mica. Then a few months later the NSAI finally acknowledged the emerging scientific evidence was very serious and a review had to be done of IS 465. The basis for all this remediation was a hill of beans. All of a sudden the Department officials drafted a new response that said in small print the Minister always told the Housing Agency to look at pyrrhotite. They threw the agency under the bus. There is no political leadership in the Department of housing. The officials will just do what they want. They are not accountable. They will tell you one month the Housing Agency is following IS 465 and mica is the cancer that you have and therefore your house does not have to be demolished. Then a few months later they will say they were wrong about that, but in the small print it is pyrrhotite. They threw the Housing Agency under the bus. I watched that happening. It is time for the Minister for housing and the Ministers of State to listen to us on the ground in our constituencies and give political direction to the officials in the Department. If the Minister and the Ministers of State do not do that the officials will never make any changes. Why would they? The senior departmental officials are not motivated to make any changes. They are not accountable. They will never have to get elected in any of these constituencies. They will never have to face the people of Donegal, Mayo, Sligo, Clare, Limerick and a growing number of other counties, but the Minister and the Ministers of State will. I had to intervene, having watched that exchange, and tell the Minister of State my experience. I hope he will reflect on that, start to show clear political direction, do what is right and not have the officials write scripts that make a mockery of this place.

Sentiment score: -0.01

What I said is very relevant in that a response has been given to Deputy Doherty that clearly contradicts the understanding he was given by the Minister for Finance. One arm does not know what the other arm is doing. In terms of officials, I will just say we had officials come before Oireachtas committees telling us we had 100% redress and they were strongly and robustly told they should not say that and should not insult our people. Then we have parliamentary questions repeating those phrases. It is a two-way process. Respect works both ways and if people do not listen to hurt that is caused by words and they repeat those words you do not get respect for that. I will leave it at that.

Sentiment score: 0.16

I wish to speak in support of these amendments from Deputy Ward. There is no doubt that we need greater oversight of the entire process. I spoke earlier on this issue, and I want to touch on it again. Sadly, we have an utterly deficient standard, IS 465. Basically, we have been diagnosed with the wrong cancer. Mica was not the main contributory factor to the crumbling of homes in Donegal. What has clearly emerged from international peer-reviewed research science, which it is pretty clear the NSAI now accepts, is that it is pyrrhotite and internal sulphate attack. I have to fear that the rush to label it as mica may have been influenced by the wish not to knock down all the houses and to save money, to be crude about it. I remember hearing a member of the panel on a radio station. They explained to the layperson that with pyrite, the house has to come down, but with mica, the house can stay up. I remember it so well. I am a layperson. I am certainly no scientific expert or geologist, but I trusted that. I always use the example that when I get on a plane, I trust the pilot can fly the plane and trust that the mechanics have maintained the plane well. I put my life in their hands, as everybody does. We put an awful lot of trust in experts, but the experts got it badly wrong. That flowed into a tortuous process for homeowners, where their engineers, who had looked at the house extensively, carried out the testing and been on site, said the house had to come down. They were qualified engineers who were on the list. Then there was the situation where the Housing Agency just used a desktop, it seems, looking at IS 465. Its engineers had not even visited the houses. I have already seen some of the decisions of the appeals panel. It is astonishing. Basically, there were engineers who had not gone on site and inspected the house, but had overruled an engineer who had, based on IS 465. When we raised this with the Minister, initially the Department of housing was standing over the Housing Agency. Then, when the emerging evidence became apparent, it said that, no, it was always supposed to be looking at pyrrhotite too. The Housing Agency was left on its own. These amendments are very important. We need to make sure there is oversight and accountability. We also need to know what is emerging and what the experience has been, so we can learn from it. I support the amendments. I want to talk briefly about the appeals, in particular the length of time involved. It is an independent process. Every time we tried to get answers from the Minister, Deputy James Browne, and the previous Minister, it was said to be an independent process. The Housing Agency has an independent process. Donegal County Council has an independent process. People waited for a year. They were already traumatised and then they had this decision. They know it is wrong, but it takes another year. Finally, the appeals panel is starting to deal with this, but it has been so slow. It is agonising. These are important amendments. They are about accountability and making sure that we can see the situation, but also the big picture. We can analyse the emerging data, see what is happening and try to improve things and make them better. They are good amendments, which I support.

Sentiment score: 0.05

This is one of the amendments that was announced after we finally got our hands on the legislation. There was the heads of Bill as presented to the committee on housing and then there were these amendments that were added on. Here is the problem. We have a scheme that tells people they should knock down half of a semi-detached block. We have a scheme that tells you that you should pick out a terraced house out of a row but I will particularly focus on semi-detached units. It really is a minefield for builders. They are very reluctant to do these types of jobs and the prices reflect that. The SCSI costings for a typical semi-detached three or four-bedroom property that was reported back in March 2024, now approaching two years ago, would be a very different price now. Builders can just name what they want. They do not need the work and they do not really want to be doing that work. They have to physically knock down the house very carefully so as not to impact the adjoining house. In some cases, the owners of the adjoining properties are appealing to An Bord Pleanála to try to stop the work. This is a real mess. What is the Minister of State's response to that? It is incremental and minimalist; basically talking about the damage threshold. The fact is there is a whole layer of houses. This goes to the fundamental problems with the scheme. There could be somebody who is a holiday home owner and who is not eligible to take part in the scheme. There could be somebody who has more than one rental property, so this could be property number two, three or four. That is not eligible for the scheme. As these properties are not eligible for the scheme, the Government is forcing one half of the semi-detached block to be knocked down and the other half cannot be because it is not eligible for the scheme. Then, there is the issue of people who just cannot afford to go onto the scheme. They cannot access the money. Because the scheme is not working, we see, in housing estates, half a block being replaced and half staying up. It is just a mess. Rather than just accept this issue of semi-detached dwellings points to the fundamental problems with the conception of the scheme and the injustice of the scheme, what does the Minister of State come up with? A damage threshold, which is the most absolutely minimalist thing that can be done. It will make very little impact. In all of this legislation and amendments that have been presented , this amendment tells me the Government is completely and utterly out of touch with the reality on the ground in our counties. It actually is astonishing that what it came up with as a response to dealing with the mess of knocking down half of these blocks - and we see it all over our constituency - is that if there is one house that is less damaged than the other, we will let both of them go through. That is not the issue. The issue is that there is a whole clatter of houses. As most houses cannot engage with this scheme, they cannot be knocked down because either they are not eligible or the owners cannot afford it so we end up with this. This is just a deeply frustrating amendment and it points to the fact the Minister of State is just not listening. I appreciated Deputy Pat the Cope Gallagher's statement tonight. He is clear this scheme is not working. There are other Government representatives in Donegal who are clear but the problem is that the representatives the Minister of State is listening to are badly advising him. I say again that the Minister of State can ram through this legislation. By the way, it looks like he will reject the amendment. I do not see any evidence that he will accept any amendments. Mark my words: he will be back again in a year and he will be back again in another year. I will talk to both the Minister and the Minister of State when we are older men and they will say I was right that this will come back to haunt them in five years. Maybe their time in politics will be over then but it will come back to haunt those who replace them in time to come. Hopefully, in due course, we will have a government that wakes up and realises 100% redress, delivered directly by the State the same way as the pyrite remediation scheme, is the only way you will take every victim home and give them justice. Frankly, this amendment tells me everything I need to know about how short-sighted they are.

Sentiment score: -0.14

I will not get into whether Deputy Gallagher is more in tune with the voters of Donegal than Deputy McConalogue.

Sentiment score: 0.00

I will not do it but I will let the people have their say in due course on those matters.

Sentiment score: 0.04

The Minister of State did not deal with the issues I raised. Is it a good idea to knock down half a block, to take down half a house when the house next door is equally damaged but that has to stay because that is not eligible for the scheme? That house might be a holiday home. It could be a rental property, more than one or it could be that the person just cannot afford it which is the most common example that we have. Is it okay to force families to knock down half? When you talk to the builders, there is extreme nervousness around this. I will not repeat everything I said. The Minister of State heard what I said. He is an intelligent man. I know the Minister of State and we have dealt with each other over many things over the years. I will ask the Minister of State again. Is it acceptable to force people to knock down half a semi-detached block and leave the other half, that is equally damaged by defective blocks, standing? It makes no sense but that is what the Minister's scheme forces people to do. If the Minister and the Minister of State have time next year, in January, we would be happy to take them around and show them the reality on the ground. They can take Deputies Gallagher and McConalogue so we do not exclude anybody. I am serious about this. Please come. The Minister will force this amendment and all these amendments through tonight. That is how it is going to play out, but I ask him now to come out and look at this issue of semi-detached houses, come and visit some of the houses that we are dealing with in Donegal, Mayo and these counties, and hopefully we can change his mind.

Sentiment score: 0.06

I support Deputy Ward’s amendments, but I also wish to comment on section 8. I said on Second Stage – the Minister might have heard my contribution – that it is deeply unjust to have a deadline of 29 March. I can guess what the rationale for it was: the publication of the SCSI report. We should remember that the first scheme was discredited and replaced by a second, which I believe was also discredited. That is my opinion and I am not asking the Minister to deal with that. What happened when the first scheme transitioned to the second scheme was that the early starters - the early movers - were not penalised. They were able to avail of the increases in caps and rates as they transferred over to the new scheme. The principle was that early movers would not be punished. We should remember that the cost of building has been increasing continually. The SCSI was requested in 2023 by the then Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, to produce the report. That indicates the period it would have been examining. The report was published in March 2024, but the SCSI would have been considering the facts on the ground from 2023. It is deeply unjust, to have the deadline. What does it mean? I agree with my colleague Deputy Ward on this. He estimates that dozens of families are affected. It is not huge money in the overall scheme of things but it is devastating for those families to be punished for being early movers. The Minister should think about this. I do not need to recite the horror show that these families are going through. They could not wait any longer, so they just got on with it and the fact is they are now being penalised by the introduction of this arbitrary date. I appreciate that the Minister has made a call and I would say that he is not going to accept any amendments but I ask him to please reflect on this when it comes to the Seanad, because this is extremely cruel to dozens of families. It will cost them tens of thousands of euro. We have spoken to those families. I have no doubt but that they are watching this debate tonight. We have talked to them and their children. The maximum amount here is €42,000. That is a lot of money for a working family to have to pay back and beg, borrow and steal. I am asking the Minister to remove that date and to allow those early movers, the same as he did on the previous scheme, not to be punished. I ask him to not punish them for moving early. They could not hold back any longer. If the Minister does not accept it, he should listen to us tonight. He has time to bring amendments when it goes to the Seanad. I ask him to please do that.

Sentiment score: -0.08

I will try to follow the logic of what the Minister has said. He knows about the first scheme in 2020 and the second scheme in 2022. When the second scheme came in, the Government did not just look forward, it made sure that the early movers availed of the increased cap. So how on earth can the Minister argue differently now? In 2022 the people who came in through the original scheme were able to avail of the new caps that were introduced in 2022. There is no consistency here. There is no point in us going back and forth tonight; I am not going to convince the Minister. However, he has the opportunity to bring an amendment into the Seanad. I appeal to him, without having a big blazing row back and forth, to please follow the logic of what he did in 2022 when the early movers were not punished. They were dealing with the same prices as the Minister knows. That report was developed through 2023 and into 2024. It is really cruel to leave these families behind. The Minister does not have to accept this tonight. I know that our amendments have been ruled out of order. We are appealing to him that when the Bill goes to the Seanad to make the amendment then and remove this arbitrary deadline. We should not punish early movers. The Minister should stay consistent with the approach his predecessor took in 2022. Flawed as that legislation was, at least it was good that the increased cap was available to those going through the scheme already.

Sentiment score: 0.05

Under Standing Order 88(3)(b), I propose that the vote be taken by other than electronic means.

Sentiment score: 0.00