Charles Ward: Defective Concrete scheme delays trap families

I support this inclusion of Fingal and Wexford in the Defective Concrete Scheme. This motion exposes how the scheme is being delivered. On the ground, delivery is still happening in stages. Counties and areas are added one by one, often after long preparatory work has already been completed. This creates delay built into a system itself, not delay caused by chance. The delay is shown in how slowly the scheme becomes available, how we're separating, tendering designations, process for each county in every area. The gap has not been occasional, it has been consistent throughout this whole scheme and I am not speaking from distance. My own home is within the scheme and I've been caught in the scheme for six years. FY material has come to light that shows that it's a very clear framework for chartered engineers who are not just planning the theory but were actively being put in place for multiple counties from 2024 to 2025. This is significant because it shows preparation is happening in advance but there is significant delay before preparation is turned into delivery. As the system prepares to deliver, families wait for years and the preparation turns in to translate into action on the ground. But the gap is now defining and the scheme is experiencing significant delays and as you're aware the pirate remediation scheme provided a true 100% redress. This scheme does not. The financial pressures emerging within the scheme are clear. The gap is already leading to shortfalls in Donegal and this is already happening, not something that might happen in the future. These pressures will not stay in one area and they are likely to become very significantly troublesome in the areas of Fingal and this is what the current experience is showing us in Donegal. There's practical barriers within the scheme that affect whether homes can actually be built even after approval. People are dealing with sequences of work, managing multiple stage construction and how to fund the works upfront even before they begin and their shortfalls are significant. Approval does not always mean progress on the ground. Only a few hundred homes have been fully completed under the scheme so far and some of them are remediation works. The scheme runs until 2037 but at the current pace delivery and the date does not reassure families. It shows how slowly homes are actually being completed. As more areas are added the pattern becomes clearer, not because the problem is new but because the system has not changed and what exists is a process that prepares and pauses and then releases in stages, not a system that moves smoothly with readiness to completion. The issue is not whether Fingal and Wexford should be included, of course they should be included. The issue is why inclusion requires repeated administrative steps when the groundwork for delivery already exists and it's already there and it has to be done. There is no reason for families to be kept waiting and at this point the real issue is not eligibility, it is the distance between preparation and completion and suggestion has been made for those using, for us that are concerned, do not, who are afraid to enter the scheme. We are waiting, people are waiting. There is no review of IS 465 and there's an apprehension and people that are going forward in the scheme are out thousands and thousands of euro. People are not raising the issue for a political advantage, they are raising this because they're dealing with this in their own counties and in dealing with their family and their friends. Families and damaged homes do not need their motives questioned, they need systems to function properly, they want a scheme that works. This is why I will continue to raise this and continue to challenge this and continue to push and make sure this is delivered at pace and scale that is actually required. This is not about disagreement within the scheme, this is whether this is going to deliver for families and when we continue to deliver it, when will it be rolled out and will it be in stages. There is a real apprehension out there of currently what's going on. We have 3,000 people caught in a scheme, 300 and something houses completed with 300 more to come. There is, at the rate we're going right now, to rebuild just the 3,000 houses it's going to take decades upon decades but the real number within Donegal is up in the tens to twenty thousands at least bare minimal because everything that was affected that came from a certain quarry we know the potential is there. The damage threshold might not come through yet but they're living in houses that are plastered up that are containing sand. There's no block there anymore and the reality is there is no proper testing of quarries to this day. So as we speak there's defective materials coming onto the marketplace right now. When we should have scientific laboratories measuring and taking the samples from every quarry in Donegal to make sure this doesn't happen again but yet nothing. There is a real close your eyes and let's hope things get better approach to this. This is not the fault of the homeowners. The homeowners have done nothing wrong. Anybody in Ireland that is affected with defective concrete has gone through a journey you wouldn't wish on anybody. This has been going on 14 years and we've had two failed schemes and we're in the middle of a scheme right now that has delivered barely 300 houses completed and amongst them 300 houses there are a number of people who have remediation which is a patch-up job. They will have to come back and do again but right now they're stuck in them houses. They cannot sell them houses. They cannot move on with their lives. They are stuck like I am stuck like everybody else is stuck. We're depending on you now to make sure that this scheme that is coming and waiting on IS 465 is done in the proper way but but just to give you figures the current rate of the scheme and I hear this from Michael Martin every time I'm speaking I'm getting we're spending 250 I understand all that but I also understand that there's tens of thousands of houses to be built and at the rate we're currently doing it it's going to take generations to complete this. So we have to accept that it was government regulation that caused us and quarries that caused us. They produced materials that were defective that were put into blocks that were sold out onto the market. Now we need you to acknowledge this and we need you to put proper protocols in place testing in place to make sure this never happens again.