I welcome Deputy Ward's motion and am delighted to be able to sign it. There is no doubt that huge credit is due to people like Professor Paul Dunlop and his colleagues at Ulster University, as well as Members of this House, including members of my own party such as Deputy Mac Lochlainn and others who have led the charge along with Deputy Ó Broin in relation to this area here. The reality is that the Government has got this wrong. For many years, we have stood in this House and in committees and told the Government it is analysing the wrong problem and that, as a result, it is coming up with the wrong solutions. Now, the penny has dropped. The international evidence has been accepted and the standards have been updated. However, there are now many people in my county and other counties who have been told the remedy was something flawed. Outer leaf was nonsense, partial demolition was nonsense and downgrading of the assessments was absolute nonsense, but the Government refuses to listen over and over again. In the middle of all this, as we are talking about blocks in houses and costs and all the rest, there are human beings and families who are living in these situations. The Government continues with the misery, pain and hardship because it still will not recognise what needs to be done here. We need a full 100% redress scheme - an end-to-end scheme such as the one we in Sinn Féin put forward to the Government many years ago. For six, seven or eight years, we have been telling Government that the people of Donegal, Clare, Mayo and right across the west coast and beyond deserve the same rights as those who had it on the east coast, who got 100% redress and an end-to-end scheme. The reality is that the Government wants to put its head in the sand and hope this will go away, but it will not. No matter what tinkering the Government does with this scheme, it is not going to work for many people because they do not have €50,000, €60,000 or €70,000 under their mattress; it does not exist. There are people at an age in life who should never be asked to manage rebuilding their home. Why? Because it was not their fault. It was the Government's fault. As Deputy Mac Lochlainn said, it was the Government's fault because it cosied up to builders and developers and filled its pockets down in the Galway tent, allowing for no regulation. That has caused havoc in my county. It has destroyed the lives of people. Now that the Government has finally seen sense with regard to the standards, it should please listen to the experts, the people on the ground and the Opposition when we tell it to stop with the tinkering. We need a 100% redress scheme, we need an end-to-end scheme and we need to end this misery once and for all.

Sentiment score: -0.16