Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty accused the Government of failing to pursue “wrongdoers” including quarries, builders and block manufacturers in the mica defective block scandal despite legal advice from the attorney general to do so.
Mr Doherty also claimed there was a concerted effort at the “very heart of” Government to limit financial support to thousands of homeowners in the scheme “as their houses and lives crumbled right before their eyes”.
Concrete blocks containing excess amounts of minerals mica and pyrite caused major cracks and defects in some 7,000 properties in Donegal, Mayo, Limerick, Clare and Sligo. The Government introduced a defective concrete blocks scheme and then an enhanced scheme, offering grants of up to €420,000 for affected owners.
Raising the issue during Leaders’ Questions the Donegal TD cited advice by then attorney general Paul Gallagher in 2021 to Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien to “urgently pursue the wrongdoers” but he said the Government has “done nothing about that”.
Mr Doherty said the homeowners are “victims of a crisis, where they are facing financial ruin and hardship and only ever wanted fairness only ever wanted justice only ever wanted a safe home for themselves and their children”.
“Only 61 properties have been fully remediated to date and that includes under the old scheme that was announced in 2018. The failures of the Government in responding to the defect scandal aren’t surprising.”
Tánaiste Micheál Martin said he disagreed “fundamentally” with the accusation that the Government was attempting to limit the scheme. He accepted that the initial scheme was “unsatisfactory” and “that’s why the Government acted in terms of dramatically changing and transforming the scheme”.
He said “I don’t know how the Deputy can say the focus has been on limiting the financial allocation to the scheme when the costs are estimated at €2.3 billion”, which was a “by any objective yardstick is a very significant response” and nobody was being excluded.
Mr Martin added that there was a Government guarantee in the form of a second grant option if required.
“I don’t think there’s a jurisdiction anywhere in Europe would have responded in the manner that we have responded here as a Government”.
The Tánaiste also claimed that Sinn Féin “haven’t been on the ball on this for quite a long time” as he claimed the party never replied to a written request two months after the working group report was published, requesting that they give “your own detailed submission” on how to resolve the issue.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
