Defective Concrete Blocks Social Homes Scheme 2026: Motion

I move: That Dáil Éireann approves the following scheme in draft: Defective Concrete Blocks Social Homes Scheme 2026, a copy of which has been laid in draft form before Dáil Éireann on 7th August, 2026. I welcome the opportunity to speak this afternoon on what is an important matter. As Deputies are aware, a defective concrete blocks grant scheme was put in place in 2020 to financially support affected homeowners in counties Donegal and Mayo, whose homes were impacted by defective concrete blocks. A number of improvements were brought forward under the Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks Act 2022 and that commenced on 22 June 2023. I brought forward a number of additional significant improvements in 2025 via the amendment Act of 2025, and these included significant changes such as providing an opportunity for certain homeowners to apply for increased grants and the construction of adjacent dwellings in specific circumstances. Measures such as these are having an impact and real progress is being made. As of the end of August this year 604 homes had been remediated with a further 794 homes notifying their relevant designated local authority of the date of commencement of work to remediate their homes. Upon commencement in 2023, the current scheme was open to four local authority areas. As it stands today a further five local authority areas have been designated under the grant scheme, bringing the total number to nine counties, which are Donegal, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Sligo and parts of the administrative areas of Wexford, Fingal and Meath county councils. Another particularly important aspect of the 2022 Act is that it allows a scheme to be put in place by the Government to remediate social homes owned by local authorities and approved housing bodies where these homes are located in designated local authority areas. Upon making the scheme designated local authorities and approved housing bodies will be able to commence work to remediate damage caused to dwellings where the damage has been caused by the use of defective concrete blocks in their construction. Section 36 of the 2022 Act provides that social homes will receive the same remediation options as those covered under the current defective concrete blocks grant scheme for private housing, and the same grant cap, grant rates and damage threshold requirements, thus any legislative changes to the 2022 Act will apply equally, where appropriate, to social homes affected by defective concrete blocks, as they do to private housing. Prior to the drafting of the social homes scheme, my Department engaged in extensive consultation with designated local authorities, the Irish Council for Social Housing and a number of approved housing bodies, AHBs. The feedback received through this process helped to inform and shape the development of the draft scheme. Following the drafting of the scheme, my Department continues to have regular engagement with these bodies. The draft social homes scheme replicates most of the defective concrete blocks grant scheme in its provisions. The scheme, in terms of content, is based on the current scheme for private homeowners, with appropriate amendments where necessary to reflect the slightly different nature of social housing. There are some areas that differ from the private scheme, and the way the scheme would be operationalised in practice by local authorities has been the subject of careful consideration. The Housing Agency conducts all of the technical work under the current private scheme, but the agency will have no such role in the social scheme. Instead, the designated local authority or approved housing body will arrange the preparation of a building condition assessment report and engage a competent engineer to undertake a report in line with IS 465:2026. Furthermore, the designated local authority or approved housing body will engage a contractor to undertake the remediation works required. The designated local authority or approved housing body will seek recoupment of moneys it expends in remediating a dwelling directly from my Department. Finally, the designated local authority or approved housing body will be obliged to rehouse tenants where necessary while an affected home is being remediated. This will be funded under the ancillary grant element of the scheme to a maximum amount of €16,500, exactly as per the current scheme. As Members are aware, on 2 June 2026 the new standard, IS 465:2026, was published. This standard replaced the previous standard, IS 465:2018. This publication requires a review of the operation of the Act, which has now been commenced. It is being carried out by my Department with the assistance of external expertise as necessary. Findings from this review may require changes to the current private scheme and any changes may also be brought to the social homes scheme in the future. In February 2026, the County and City Management Association produced a revised estimate of the number of affected dwellings for private and social homes, and the Irish Council for Social Housing has also provided an estimate for approved housing bodies' dwellings. Using these estimates for the number of potentially impacted dwellings indicates a revised and social homes scheme cost of €3.1 billion, excluding inflation. It is estimated that there are just over 2,400 social housing units likely to be impacted by defective concrete blocks. Based on an average estimated remediation cost per unit of €300,000, the overall cost of the social scheme would be approximately €728 million, excluding inflation. As Members are aware, a draft scheme was approved by the Government on 22 July 2026 and has since been laid before each House of the Oireachtas. In accordance with the legislative requirements, the scheme cannot be formally approved until a resolution approving the draft has been passed by both Houses. Subject to the approval of the Oireachtas, I intend to bring a memorandum to the Government seeking approval for making of the defective concrete blocks social homes scheme 2026. This will enable the scheme to be formally established and pave the way for the commencement of remediation works on affected social homes. I know that the local authorities have been preparing for some time with the assistance of my Department for what will mark the beginning of an important new phase in the defective concrete blocks remediation scheme. These preparatory works should ensure that works can begin in the coming months. I understand that some of the affected local authorities have already identified a number of specific homes in their housing stock where remediation can begin once the scheme is signed by the Government, allowing procurement to move ahead at pace. This initial batch of homes will then be in progress in 2027 and will allow the sector to learn from experience the optimum way to manage the process in a manner that, first and foremost, benefits their tenants. The level of commitment shown by this Government to homeowners affected by defective concrete blocks is evident in the significant measures and supports that have been introduced in recent years. In principle, these relate to the funding that we have provided and the way we have extended the scope of the scheme as and when needed. More than €405 million has been spent on the scheme to date. Government funding for this work continues to be provided as and when required on an annual basis, with a record €175 million allocated to fund the scheme in 2026. That is more than double the amount allocated to the scheme last year and reflects an increase in the uptake in this grant scheme. This scheme represents a significant step forward, enabling the remediation of social housing stock impacted by defective concrete blocks, DCB, and allowing these essential works to begin in the near future. I am anxious to move this programme forward and to see works commence on these homes at the earliest opportunity. I encourage each designated local authority to make full use of the resources available to them to ensure that affected homes are remediated promptly and to the highest possible standards. I would also encourage designated local authorities to co-ordinate their efforts to access other schemes and funding streams that are available and that can support the remediation of social homes. In particular, I urge them to adopt a co-ordinated approach with the Department's energy efficiency retrofit programme for social homes. This approach will help to deliver not only safe and sustainable homes but also long-term benefits for tenants through improved comfort, reduced energy consumption and lower household energy costs. It is now more important than ever that we further invest in a remediation of social housing stock. I will conclude by thanking the local authorities and the Irish Council for Social Housing for working with officials in my Department in developing this important scheme.

The tenants in local authority and approved housing bodies social housing stock impacted by defective concrete blocks have been waiting a very long time for this scheme. I have to say that, like its parent scheme, the Minister is making an absolute mess of it. The defective concrete blocks scheme is itself defective. The Minister should talk to homeowners in Donegal, Mayo, Clare and Fingal. They will tell him it is not 100% redress. They will also tell him that they are spending tens upon thousands of euro to fill the gap. In fact, many people are not applying at all. The latest figures from the Minister's own Department show very clearly that only 604 applicants of the tens of thousands of impacted homeowners have completed remediation works. The idea that he can just incorporate social housing into this defective scheme really shows he does not understand the scale of the problems. What is worse is that local authorities and approved housing bodies have told the Minister and his officials that they have real concerns about what is in front of us. They are not at all clear about what costs are going to be covered. Will costs incurred to date be covered? Will preventative costs be covered? Will ancillary costs, non-construction costs and disposal costs be covered? The basic principle here is that local authorities should not have to come up with a single cent of money from their own resources to remediate these homes. What about conjoined buildings? AHBs and local authorities, particularly in Donegal and Mayo, have many buildings attached that are not eligible under the DCB scheme, and there is no certainty here. It is the same with foundations. Again, this matter has not been resolved. Probably the worst element of this scheme is that the Minister is saying to the local authorities that they should rebuild the homes to the old standards. The reason that makes even less sense in a State scheme is because the State will ultimately have to pay additional money to bring those homes up to new standards, including of energy efficiency. If the Minister is going to do this right, and homes have to be demolished and rebuilt, he should build them to modern standards, because the State has to fund this cost anyway. I do not understand why the Minister did not just fund this through the normal social housing capital programme. Incorporating them into a grant scheme is simply ludicrous. At a minimum, there is a very clear request from the local authorities and the AHBs for a working group comprising departmental officials, local authority officials and elected members from the affected counties. I would add tenants' representative bodies as well. It needs to be set up immediately to manage the scheme's implementation. The local authorities and AHBs are not satisfied with this. We also need to have more Oireachtas scrutiny. We do not know the full details of what we are being asked to vote on here today, and meanwhile the overall scheme has to be fixed. I welcome the fact that a review has now started but there is no indication of whether there will be a public element to it. Will the public be invited to make submissions? Will there be some transparency around that? I urge the Minister to do that. While we are not going to stand in the way of this motion today, could the Minister please not take that as endorsing what he is doing? He is making a terrible mess. We are asking him to reconsider and ensure that every local authority and AHB and, crucially, the tenants who live in their homes, have those homes remediated as a matter of urgency without the local authorities having to foot any portion of the bill. If the Minister does not do that, it will disincentivise remediation and homes will be left behind.

The issue is that the Minister has been listening to the wrong people. He has been to Donegal and he has listened to some of the homeowners but he has been listening to the wrong people. I am genuine about this and I ask him to go back and engage with some of the affected homeowner groups and speak to more than just his own party colleagues in the county. The scheme is leaving huge numbers of people behind. The Minister and I know the reason he has not introduced a fully funded scheme, as he would have with any other local authority or approved housing body project, is because of the failings of the original scheme. The Minister knows that if he publicly announced a fully funded scheme for the local authorities he would expose that the primary scheme does not involve 100% redress. If we took it as read that Donegal County Council, for example, would have to go ahead with this, the matched funding could potentially be €100 million. This is the reality because of the gap multiplied by the number of houses. The Minister is doing this at a time when we have a new standard. He is telling the local authorities not to test the concrete foundations even though the new standard says they should. He is telling them they could replace the outer leaf when the new standard says they cannot. It is actually in defiance of the science to go ahead with a new scheme based on what looks like the previous standard, which has been discredited. The Minister has not consulted with the local authorities and approved housing bodies. This does not have their fingerprints on it. It is the Minister trying to match up with the existing scheme. He is making a huge mistake, as my colleague, Deputy Ó Broin, has said. We cannot block this motion going through today as we are not going to stop money going to local authorities to move on with this but it is just wrong.

We have waited so long for this scheme and people in Mayo who are living in local authority houses desperately need it. They have waited for years for this scheme. This reminds me of when the original scheme came out and the action group sat in Erris and presented 20 things that would make that scheme right, affordable and fit for purpose and would provide 100% for people but the Government did not listen. It is absolutely critical that the Minister listens at this point to get this scheme right. As my colleagues have said, the Minister is speaking to the wrong people, or he certainly has not spoken to the people he needs to in relation to how this can be done and how it needs to be done. There are issues such as resources. The Minister cannot leave local authorities with big gaps and no funding. There are issues such as how the testing will be done. At present, the testing is taking more than a year. Show us how this can be done in a short period of time. Show us how the builds can be completed to current standards and how they can be energy efficient. Otherwise we are on a hiding to nowhere. We desperately need this scheme but we desperately need to get it right and we need it to be fit for purpose. We need to have proper accommodation for the tenants who have to move out of their homes. I am asking the Minister to work with us as a party, given all of the years of experience we have with the defective concrete blocks schemes, to at least get this one right. The other one is not 100% and people are being left with huge gaps or are locked out of it because they cannot afford to get into it. Do not keep making the same mistakes. Please do not keep making the same mistakes.

I support what has been said, and the Social Democrats will not be opposing the motion. We will support what has been put forward on the basis that funding is going to local authorities and AHBs but not with regard to the way in which it has been done. There are serious gaps in what has been proposed and this is a pity because there really was an opportunity here to address the significant issues with defective buildings and social housing. There are also particular issues here. Social housing tenants are particularly vulnerable and we are dealing with a situation whereby local authorities have been absolutely and completely underfunded. Look at the basic maintenance that is not being done in local authority housing. There is a disgraceful situation with Dublin City Council and other councils whereby tenants who are in poverty, living in mould and damp, have been forced to pay ever-higher rents because the Minister has failed to fund local authorities sufficiently to undertake the maintenance that is required. This cannot be an additional cost for local authorities and AHBs. They cannot be left out of pocket in addressing this issue. Another issue that still has not been addressed is that those who are responsible for this have not been held to account. We still do not have this and it is absolutely incredible that the cost is to the taxpayer and to those people who live in the homes and the State has not actively sought out those responsible and penalised them appropriately. There is this issue of accountability and people being left off the hook. We know that in some situations the same developers are building new homes or engaging in some of the refurbishment that is required because of what happened in the first place. Of course a lack of accountability is a fundamental problem we have in the State when issues happen and the Government does not want to interfere with the market. The scale of this is quite significant. There could be tens of thousands of social homes affected and local authorities and AHBs will be responsible for undertaking assessments, appointing engineers and rehousing tenants. These are significant tasks that local authorities will have to take on and they will need to be resourced properly. This cannot be taken from existing maintenance budgets. We want this commitment for the scheme. Earlier the Minister mentioned the scheme being developed in negotiation with the various stakeholders. It is very clear that while he might have met them and spoken with them, he did not listen to them, similar to the rental legislation. The Irish Council for Social Housing, which represents AHBs, sets out clearly that it is very concerned that, for example, group homes are not included. Perhaps the Minister will give clarity on this. Will there be a full and retrospective grants process? Local authorities and AHBs cannot fund any shortfall in the defects remediation, particularly preventative works. What about rehousing tenants? The local authorities and AHBs also point out the need to bring together and co-ordinate the retrofitting programmes, what is being done and, where necessary, the need to rebuild homes. The necessary funding should be provided for this. They are also concerned, as has been raised, about the revised IS 465 standard and, in particular, the issue of addressing the building as a whole rather than simply assessing the above-ground block work. Will the Minister comment on whether this is going to be addressed? There is an issue with remediation being needed in the foundations and not only in the above-ground building itself. I echo the call for, and ask the Minister to take on, the establishment of a working group comprising full stakeholder representation, including the Department, AHBs and local authorities, as well as engineers, surveyors and architects. This highlights why we should have a State construction company. If the Minister had the vision and courage to set up a State construction company, it could be working to address some of these issues rather than having to go out again to the private sector, which is supposed to be building new homes and will now also have to do this work. We have an issue with capacity and ensuring things are done right and done to a standard whereby we will not repeat these problems. It comes back to the point that the State has to have a role in directly building homes across this country, particularly social homes, so it can ensure that high-quality homes are delivered and that we can address issues such as retrofitting and defective blocks.

The Labour Party will not stand in the Minister's way with regard to what he is doing here. The basic principle of what he is trying to do is welcome, in terms of extending this to social homes. The issue I have, as has been alluded to throughout the debate, is with the actual scheme itself. We know that more than 2,400 social homes are estimated to have been affected by defective concrete blocks. This is an important step, but the issue I have is with the scheme itself, because it is fundamentally defective. It is a yellow-pack scheme. It is slow, bureaucratic and not 100% redress. My concern here is that we are going to have a situation where AHBs and councils are going to be left with significant funding gaps. That is something the Minister is going to have to address. We have the issue, again, of foundations and foundation costs. The whole idea of potentially forcing a local authority to rebuild or repair a social home on top of a potentially defective, cracked foundation and transferring all that risk onto public infrastructure makes absolutely no sense. In the long term, that represents poor value and something that could potentially come back to haunt the State. I was reading the other day that Donegal County Council was saying it could cost up to €100 million to test, repair and replace the cracked or compromised foundations of 2,400 social homes. We also have the issue of construction costs and the fact that these are based on information that is now a number of years out of date. We know we have since had inflation, instability and war in the Middle East. The issue I have here, and it goes back to what I was saying about the specifics of the scheme, is that the Minister's Department needs to find a way to guarantee that rent-paying council and AHB tenants will not be trapped for the medium to longer term in crumbling, unsafe housing schemes. Additionally, when we are talking about this motion here tonight, we need to be aware and cognisant of the lessons learned from the experience of the private scheme. We are all, I think, aware of the problems we have seen there. I am concerned that we could be just transferring those problems onto social tenants. Why has this taken so long? I ask this because since the initial scheme was introduced three years ago, we have seen a piecemeal approach to tweaking, plugging gaps and addressing issues, and progress has been slow and painful. While, in many ways, the Government is inching in the right direction, it is not moving anywhere near what is actually needed, which is an end-to-end scheme based on the model of the Fingal pyrite scheme. The Government can inch towards it and chip away at this and that, but we will be here twice a year, every year, for eternity, although, please God, I will not be here that long, and we still will not have a scheme that will be fit for purpose. If we look at the figures at the end of August for the private scheme, 604 homes had completed remediation. That is a fraction of the true level of need, and it is an indictment of where the scheme is going wrong. I also have concerns about whether councils and approved housing bodies will have the funding and the staffing required, as well as the capacity and expertise to administer the workload that they will be required to carry out under this scheme. If we are talking about 2,400 homes, it is really incumbent on the Government and the Department to make sure that local authorities have the resources to do it properly. The fundamental issue remains with the scheme. The fact of the matter is that the scheme leaves families, and in this case, local authorities as well, carrying the can for the financial and structural risk incurred because homes were built using defective concrete through failures in regulation and failures in oversight. Local authorities and AHBs are worried that this scheme will leave them to try to carry the can for another mess, one they did not make, and that they will be underfunded in trying to clear the mess up. If that happens, we are going to have social home tenants left in unsafe housing that they fear will fall down around them. It is not acceptable that anyone in a defective home, built using material that they were conned into believing was of an appropriate, safe standard, should be left with their home falling down around them. The fundamental issue with both the private and the social schemes is that a fully funded way of rebuilding unsafe homes in a timely and effective manner is not provided. I am not going to vote against what the Government is doing tonight because I believe it is better than what it is not doing at the moment. However, I have a number of concerns, as I have outlined, and I am very reluctant to stand here and endorse what is being done because I believe that the scheme, as it stands, is fundamentally defective. We need a system that guarantees genuine end-to-end redress, gives tenants and homeowners confidence that their homes are safe and does not force traumatised families and communities to keep coming up here, banging on the door and campaigning for their homes to be made safe. We have been here before and we will be here again. We need assurances that the resources, safeguards and ambition required to deliver on this scheme will be put in place.

I will be voting for this motion tonight, but I am disappointed with it because there was a chance to get this right. There is a standard currently under review. We could have waited, got everything tied up and got everything out. I know we have it now and we have to go on. As of April, 3,150 households in Donegal were waiting for social housing. Given the ongoing housing crisis and sustained demand, that number will almost certainly rise in the coming months. At the same time, potentially, 2,400 social homes are affected by defective concrete. I say potentially because I suspect there are a lot more. Thousands are waiting for a home while existing homes are at risk of being lost. This is a contradiction because social housing supply is an issue, and we cannot afford to get this wrong like we have done in the past with the two schemes that have failed. At a meeting my Oireachtas colleagues and I had with Donegal County Council on Monday, we were told that 174 homes have been completed this year and approximately 260 were completed last year. If we look at those figures, we would be talking about 200 or 300 years to get through this scheme. We need to ramp it up. Otherwise, we are risking creating a second waiting list for people who already have homes and who are watching them crumble and waiting to get out to get them remediated. Governance is another issue. Who checks those who are fixing the problem? The National Building Control and Market Surveillance Office audited construction products and Donegal quarries, working with Donegal County Council and Geological Survey Ireland, GSI. In this day and age, the audit identified non-compliance with three quarries. This is a governance issue. Donegal County Council will have to deliver remediation. The Housing Agency has a central technical role to play in this and then the Department sets up the framework. The State cannot mark its own homework here. There must be independent oversight and engineering standards so that conflicts of interest will show up. Quality has to be checked, and that is what the issue will be going forward. The most important person in this is the tenant. The tenant is central to this. A social tenant may depend on an engineer to engage with this scheme but neither should be expected to second-guess professional advice. A social tenant does not own the property or control what happens but if it is to be vacated, remediated or replaced, they are going to be uprooted, and this is something that they did not cause. This means there will be an impact on schools, neighbours, family supports and communities built over years. They may not own the house but they own the life that is inside that house. Every affected tenant deserves clear information, a named contact about what is going to happen next and an independent route to raise his or her concerns. A council house is not as asset for a spreadsheet; it is somebody's home. Engineering must remain engineering. The draft provides that the Minister will be notified of option one engineering recommendations and may request supporting evidence. If engineering advice supports option one, the engineer must be free to recommend it. There is oversight of the engineer, with someone looking over his or shoulder to make sure he or she does the right thing and gives the right option. In fact, there is only one option: if the house is affected, it should be pulled down. It should be option one all the way. Any review should be clear, with well-defined criteria, a timeframe and recognition of technical bias. Where disputes arise, independent technical reviews should be available. The engineer decides what the building requires, and the funding and framework must be part of that decision. The same principle applies to foundations. IS 465:2026 has now been published. The Housing Agency has said the revised standard provides a more comprehensive understanding of the affected homes. The Minister has commented on statutory reviews of the standard, yet this is excluded in the social homes scheme. All of this should have been tied up together, as I said, but, instead, we are still waiting. Donegal County Council cannot go ahead with the 80 homes it has because the money is not there to do the foundations. If this were done correctly, the council would be able to proceed. If an investigation is needed, we must investigate. If remediation is required, the scheme must fund it. The funding rules must focus on the engineer's solution. That is a priority. Concrete does not know who owns a house. The same concrete means the same science, and the response must follow the science. There is also a professional integrity issue. Ethics concerns have been raised regarding engineers and firms operating in this area. Where an engineering determination affects whether someone remains in his or her home, due diligence must apply. Conflict of interest safeguards, professional accountability and an independent route to challenge determinations are vital as we go forward. Public confidence requires confidence in the system behind an engineering report to ensure that report stands up to scrutiny. I am asking the Minister for three things. First, there must be independent governance of the social homes scheme, with clear responsibility across the Department, the Housing Agency and local authorities, along with independent scrutiny. The second requirement is protection of engineers' independence. Rules governing option one review must be clear and must not discharge the evidence based on engineers' determinations. Where a determination is disputed, an independent technical review must be available. Third, we need a review of the inclusion of foundations in IS 465:2026. If engineering evidence says foundations associated with ground works are necessary, then a scheme must deliver them. The thought always must be with the tenant. That is vital into the future. We have 3,150 households waiting on social homes. We have existing tenants waiting to know whether their homes can be made safe. We cannot fail either of those groups, which amount to more than 5,000 households in Donegal. The State owns the building but the tenants own the life that exists inside that building. We must let the engineer determine what is required and let the funding follow. The engineers should be allowed to get on with their jobs. The process must be overseen by independent governance. When the State tells tenants their home is safe, that assurance must be properly tested. We do not need another waiting list and another waiting game. We have waited long enough. We need the promise of a safe home for people. More than 50,000 homes will have to be built in Donegal in the next 20 to 30 years. Right now, we are proceeding at less than 2% capacity. We need to look at an OPW model for building homes in Donegal. It would be revolutionary. It can be done but the Government must have belief in it, which it does not right now. It is leaving it to the market, and the market is not doing any favours for homeowners in Donegal. There are contractors doing it right but there also are contractors doing it wrong.

I very much welcome the extension of this support to affected tenants of social housing. I have spoken to constituents in Mayo whose houses are in a shockingly bad state. Having engaged with the council, there really was nothing that could be done because they fell outside the previous scheme. The change is very welcome. There should be no difference in treatment between tenants in social homes and tenants in the private rental sector and, indeed, people who own their home, but it is fair to say there was a difference in treatment for a number of years. I certainly welcome the Minister's proposal but I urge him to prioritise the rehousing of tenants and ensuring they are looked after during this time. I understand the Housing Agency will not be involved in the scheme. There may be some advantages to that in terms of efficiencies and so on but I have no doubt that will come with some additional burdens for local authorities. Therefore, it is very important that councils' resources are sufficient to deal with the scheme. There are some very good officials in Mayo County Council working very diligently on this, including Ms Clodagh Gleeson in the Swinford office, whose team has done Trojan work. I urge the Minister to make sure the resources are there at local authority level to engage in all the work that has to be done.

I join other speakers in welcoming that 2,400 social housing units are being brought into the scheme. It is an entirely necessary, if somewhat delayed, move. However, as colleagues also mentioned, the proposal, in its current form, basically creates a two-tier system that again treats social housing tenants as second-class citizens. We saw that in the quality of construction of some social homes, with levels of insulation being historically of inferior construction and design, although that has improved in more recent times. While private homeowners are still not getting the 100% redress they want, they will be able to avail of the independent technical review mechanisms. However, local authority tenants will not have the same safeguard. Private owners who dispute an engineering assessment have some way of appealing it and challenging decisions. Unfortunately, the poor social housing tenants do not have that ability. While I can see why this would be organised by approved housing body or on an estate-by-estate basis, rather than by individual tenants, the latter should still be able to have a voice. They are living in, or are unable to live in, conditions that are absolutely substandard. If they want to challenge some sort of remediation works that have been outlined, they cannot do so individually. They are supposed to accept whatever the council decides. As I have seen, when planning and rezoning proposals are foisted on people with no infrastructure provision guaranteed, council officials are often inclined not necessarily to do the bidding of the Government but certainly not to be seen to fight back against it, at least not in the public eye. In that context, we need the same type of guaranteed technical oversight for social housing tenants as is proposed for private homeowners. There are only 2,400 social housing units involved at the outset but perhaps there should be a representative expert people can call upon or some other means of giving them a stake in this. The people living in social houses are stakeholders even if they do not have legal ownership rights. In introducing this scheme, the Government is trying to move towards parity between private owners and social housing tenants. However, as Deputy Charles Ward has said time and again, there is no point in giving redress unless it is 100% redress. Private homeowners are not getting what they absolutely need and people in public sector housing are getting even less. It is not parity. The situation is that those in private households can possibly better afford top-up loans, whereas people who live in AHB or council homes cannot do that in order to get the final bits done. Will the likes of the county councils in Donegal, Mayo or the other counties where issues have been identified find the requisite additional funding to bridge gaps? That is, of course, if they are in a position to identify those gaps in the first place. This needs to be revisited to make sure that any queries that are genuinely raised by people can and are seen to be addressed.

I welcome the defective concrete blocks social scheme 2026. This is the first opportunity for those who have been living in affected council houses in recent years. They did not have an opportunity to have remedial works carried out to their houses, so it is a welcome development. Officials from my county and other counties met the Minister's officials and members of the council in recent months. It is obvious that the views of local authority members and officials were taken into consideration when the scheme was formulated. I have to make it clear that it is my view that these works should be fully funded. Under no circumstances could I accept Donegal County Council having to part- or fully fund these schemes because if they did, it would an imposition on the ratepayers and the council and other capital schemes that require co-funding would be affected. In short, it is my strongly held view that the works must be fully funded. There are approximately 1,900 council houses in Donegal and 80 are shovel ready. I hope work on them will start quickly. The difference between the other scheme and this one is that the Housing Agency carries out all the technical works under the current private scheme, whereas on this occasion the designated local authority or approved housing body will engage a competent engineer to produce a building condition assessment report. It will be more streamlined. Unfortunately, time does not permit me to say any more.

I welcome the motion. For families in Donegal, Mayo and seven other council areas, defective blocks have meant cracked walls, crumbling homes and years of uncertainty. Until now, social housing sat outside the scheme. Council and housing body tenants will now get the same remediation options, the same grant cap and the same grant rates as private owners. That is fair and it is overdue. As winter approaches, there is a need to highlight the issue of council tenants living in cold homes that need retrofitting. Under the energy efficiency retrofitting programme works, more than 11,000 council homes have been deep retrofitted since 2021, which is welcome. This year, the Minister secured €140 million for 3,500 more, which I welcome. However, it must be noted that the pace is too slow. The target is 36,500 homes by 2030. At this year's rate, we will not reach that target until 2033. In my constituency of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, the gap is stark. Much of the council stock was built between the 1930s and the 1980s before the State had national building regulations. As a result, many of those homes were built with no insulation at all. The council got €4.2 million to retrofit 100 homes, but tenants in Sallynoggin, Mounttown, Ballybrack, Loughlinstown and Shankill are told year after year that their homes are not on the list. The council says it depends on central funding. My request of the Minister is that in budget 2027 he increase the allocation to deliver around 5,500 homes per year, which is the pace the 2030 target demands and give councils multi-annual allocations, in order that they can plan to do estates and not operate year by year.

Many homeowners in County Clare who are affected by defective concrete blocks are looking at us to deliver fairness, clarity and a scheme that fully works for them. While I absolutely welcome the progress made with the new IS 465 standard, which finally allows for the scientific testing of foundations - that was a crucial step - the reality is that testing alone cannot fix a home. Families are currently left in a difficult limbo where science acknowledges that the foundations of their homes are compromised, but the funding legislation has not yet caught up. As the statutory review progresses, we must ensure foundation remediation is fully funded so people are not asked to rebuild on unsafe ground. I wish to bring to the Minister's attention a frustrating bureaucratic anomaly that is causing genuine distress for families trying to navigate all this process. One arm of the State requires homeowners to provide a full, detailed valuation of their property for the purpose of calculating local property tax; yet when it comes to the remediation scheme, the parameters are not always factored in for the whole house or the true, comprehensive cost of returning a family to a complete home. We need a joined up approach. If the State looks at the whole value of the house for calculating tax, the remediation scheme should protect the integrity of the whole house as well. We must look at ultimate financial accountability. In many Dáil debates in the past, it was said the State would take a landmark legal action against the people who manufactured and sold these concrete blocks. We would like to know where that is because this scheme is funded by the taxpayers of Ireland and, ultimately, we need to be going after and penalising those who sold defective blocks. I am aware of the Minister's commitment to resolving this crisis. He has been forthright about that, which is appreciated. I urge him to use the current review to iron out the anomalies I outlined, including in respect of foundations, and to deliver the comprehensive solution the people in my county, Clare, deserve.

I am glad to have the opportunity to talk about this matter, as I have done many times in the past. I welcome that the social houses in Donegal that are damaged will have a scheme to replace them. I cannot understand why it has taken so long and why we are only at this now. Clearly, this must have happened at the same time as the private houses. Like Deputy Gallagher, I insist that the Department of housing cover the cost in full. It cannot be left to the local authorities to do so. As has been pointed out, they do not have the wherewithal to raise funding to make up any matching difference. There is no question about that. The Government must fund the replacement of these houses in full. I ask the Government to do so in the most expedient way possible to ensure that people will not be upset or disenfranchised in the tumble-down houses they are living in at present. We all remember Bridie Gallagher singing "The Homes of Donegal". It is clear that many people in their homes in Donegal are not happy. We hope that they will be and that it will not take long to address the problem. Certainly, we are doing a lot of talking here about the defective concrete blocks in Donegal, Mayo and different places. It is time the Government got a handle on and dealt with the matter. The country is awash with money.

We were able to give €2 billion - to borrow it, in fact - to keep the war between Ukraine and Russia going.

We borrowed €2 billion for that but we cannot look after the homes in Donegal.

I thank Deputies across the House for their contributions to this important debate. The motion before the House seeks approval for the social homes scheme for designated local authorities and approved housing bodies affected by defective concrete blocks. To be clear, I acknowledge the pressures Donegal County Council in particular is under regarding this matter. I have committed my Department to working hand in glove with Donegal County Council on it. The Department acknowledges the financial challenges at play, but we will ensure the council is supported as necessary on this matter and will continue to actively engage with it. This scheme represents a significant investment in supporting the remediation of social homes owned by local authorities and approved housing bodies affected by defective concrete blocks. It is an important step in protecting our social housing stock, supporting tenants and ensuring communities can continue to grow and develop in the future. I understand and appreciate the impact that defective concrete blocks have had on those directly affected. I have heard the very real stories from homeowners, tenants and families living with the challenges caused by this issue. I have been to Donegal, the county most affected, on a number of occasions. These experiences highlighted the importance of putting in place effective measures to address this issue and to provide the support that is required. As I noted in my opening remarks, the Government remains firmly committed to supporting those affected by defective concrete blocks. We have already provided significant funding through the private housing scheme, demonstrating our determination to assist homeowners. The issue of defective concrete blocks is a complex one that the Government is actively addressing. Through this social homes scheme, we are now building on our commitments to ensure that designated local authorities and approved housing body homes affected by defective concrete blocks can also be remediated and restored. We will continue to work closely with local authorities and stakeholders to ensure that the affected social homes are remediated and that tenants are supported throughout the process. As I mentioned at the outset, it is estimated that just over 2,400 social housing units are likely to be impacted by defective concrete blocks. Each designated local authority will be encouraged to take every appropriate step using all available resources to ensure that affected homes are remediated effectively. Today, we have an opportunity to take a practical and positive step forward. By supporting this motion, the House can send a clear message that we are committed to introducing a scheme to support the remediation of these homes. I therefore commend the motion to the House and ask Members to support its approval.