When you read the book Defects written by my colleague, Deputy Eoin Ó Broin, you realise that the decisions that led to this absolute disaster emanated from this Chamber. Again and again over the years, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments and Ministers were challenged about the regulation of the building and construction industry. Again and again, they failed to properly regulate and oversee that industry, and we will pay a devastating cost for generations. As has been said, last night, we learned from Chris Brough, the head of Petrolab, an expert who is testing these concrete blocks, that he estimates the number of houses that will be affected is going to be over 20,000. I believe that is a very conservative estimate. The cost to the Exchequer will not be what the Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, said, which is €3.6 billion. It will be over €9 billion, and I believe that is a conservative estimate. We are going to be haunted by this for generations because of the utter political failure. Where we are at now is on a scale with the bailing out of the banks and the bondholders. That is the impact this will have. It goes deeper. I live in the epicentre of this. My friends, my family and my neighbours are utterly devastated. Can we imagine it? The biggest purchase of your life is your home, the roof over your head. You commit to it with a mortgage for years and years. It is your castle, your pride and joy. All your memories, everything, are built around that. For a long time, I have seen the utter devastation of the impact and cost of the decisions that were made in this Chamber, the neglect that took place in this Chamber, and the relationships that people who are in this Chamber had with people who were building and manufacturing. It reached its apex during the Celtic tiger. That is when so many of these homes were built utterly recklessly. I want to be very clear, although it has been said already. The Government wants to move on. It wants to say that it is on top of this: “See that protest with 20,000 people. We have all moved on from that now.” To be very clear, it is just the beginning of the realisation of the scale. There are housing estates in Donegal near my home area where only 10% or 15% of the whole estate is being rebuilt. All of those houses will have to be rebuilt. Tens of thousands of properties will have to be rebuilt. It will be a massive amount of money that will impact us for generations, thanks to people in this Chamber who made those decisions.

Sentiment score: -0.04