I support both the motion and what has been put forward. However, there is a need to raise certain issues in relation to the scheme. There are limitations to the scheme, and a number of questions remain to be asked, specifically in respect of the take-up and why only 435 houses that were built using defective blocks, or around 13% of 3,500 homes, have had the remediation work completed. Why has there been such a low level of take-up six years on? We need that question to be answered. At that rate, it will be many decades before this issue is dealt with and before people will be able to live in safe and secure homes. The matter of defective blocks and pyrite, pyrrhotite and other issues has caused huge misery among people across the country. It was the lax regulation and hands-off approach of successive Governments that allowed cowboy developers to wreak havoc on communities. Of course, it is Fianna Fáil's long and close relationship with developers that has left us with this situation. Today, the cowboys still face no consequences. What are Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael afraid of when it comes to accountability? Why has no one been held to account? We are going to spend billions of euro of public money picking up the pieces, helping people to rebuild their homes, but who will be held to account? That is a serious question, and we need to have it answered because significant amounts of public money are essentially covering up and dealing with the consequences of the failure of the lax regulation and actions on the part of quarry owners and others who were involved. The Government needs to take action in that regard. Of course, we also know that the people who are in these homes face the insecurity that many others face, namely where they will go when their houses are being remediated. We have huge numbers of homeless people. We also have huge numbers on housing waiting lists, particularly in the counties that are affected. Where will people go and what will be done? We put forward the proposal, which the Government is still ignoring, of a State construction company that could help to rebuild these homes and that could also assist with retrofitting. In that context, we must ask from where the workers are going to come. From where are the private builders who are going to build these homes going to come ? That is why we should have local construction and State construction companies building homes and helping us get through this emergency. That is what is actually needed, but, unfortunately, Fianna Fáil's and Fine Gael's short-term vision in respect of all of this means that they fail to put in place long-term solutions.

Sentiment score: -0.03