Christopher O'Sullivan

Look at the review.

I was not listening.

I noted a lot of interest in many of the comments made. Both the Minister, Deputy Browne, and I were listening in. I noted Deputy O'Reilly's comments when she said with glee that her constituency is Fianna Fáil free. I come from a constituency, Cork South-West, where we do not have a single Sinn Féin councillor, Senator or TD. That is because, thankfully-----

-----the people of Cork South-West can see through its empty politics. That is just an answer back on that one.

Thanks as well-----

-----for the other comments. I listened with interest because what the Deputies have done is highlight the issues. Rents are too high, we do not have enough supply and we have far too much homelessness. This is something we all know. It is something that this Bill is trying to address. We often hear references to the Housing Agency and its recommendations. What the Housing Agency has asked the Gov…

I thank Deputy Healy-Rae. I am sure he will be heard loud and clear. There is no fear about that. I thank all Deputies for their contributions. There are clear messages and themes coming across. It is around timelines of delivery of much-needed infrastructure. It is around communication, which is obviously coming across quite clearly. It is also around the fact that so many of our towns and villa…

I acknowledge the efforts of the Minister of State, Deputy Dooley. I have worked with him over the past number of months meeting fishing sector representatives. I know how many times he has travelled back and forth to Europe to try to establish some sort of coalition and get other countries on board for, at the very least, invoking the Hague preferences. He did what he could. He used his vote in t…

I will now address Amendment No. 8, which was tabled by Deputies Ó Broin, Doherty, McGettigan, Conway-Walsh and Mac Lochlainn. I take the points made by the Deputies that there is an urgent need to increase capacity throughout the country. There is also an urgent need to increase affordability in the housing sector and to increase capacity in the private rental sector and the rental sector in gene…

I was not reading from a script. Deputy Doherty mentioned, in the example he provided, that perhaps a policy instruction came from the Department of justice and that the Department of Finance legislated for it. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is legislating in this instance, and there may be policy discussions. Quite often in the context of housing policies we suggest taxa…

There were accusations of a lack of political leadership and I have to dispute that. Since the Minister took up the position his focus has been on increasing supply and increasing viability. In the ten or so months he has been in the position he has introduced a range of policy measures and legislation to do that. I know this legislation was also a priority. I am sure Sinn Féin could have drafted…

I had to dispute that. Again, what is being asked for here is a taxation measure and to speak to the amendment, it is something we cannot deal with here.

I move amendment No. 13: In page 6, between lines 2 and 3, to insert the following: “Interpretation (Part 2) 3. In this Part, “Principal Act” means the Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks Act 2022.”.

The amendment proposes to insert a new section into the Bill that would amend section 3 of the principal Act. Section 3 relates to regulations made under the principal Act. I understand the Deputy is seeking to mandate an online portal to make the documents relating to the scheme available online. I am satisfied this information is already accessible online through web pages managed by my Departme…

I propose to deal with amendments Nos. 16, 50, 55 and 56 as tabled by Deputy Ward. Amendment No. 16 proposes to replace text in section 5 of the Principal Act. It will require designated local authorities to publish statistics on a quarterly basis under various headings. My Department already maintains and publishes statistics relating to the scheme, updated on a monthly basis on its DCB webpage. …

I move amendment No. 20: In page 7, between lines 3 and 4, to insert the following: “Damage threshold for attached dwellings 7. The Principal Act is amended by the insertion of the following section after section 15: “15A.(1) Where a determination is made under section 15(1)(b) that a relevant dwelling does not meet the damage threshold, the relevant owner may make a notification under subsect…

I am glad Deputy Mac Lochlainn referenced the fine Government TDs that we have in Donegal. Deputies Gallagher and McConalogue are speaking to the same constituents the Deputy is speaking to. They are listening, they are hearing them and they represent them. The Opposition does not have a monopoly on how they represent the people of Donegal and those impacted by defective blocks. The Government De…

That is important. It allows flexibility and assistance where it is needed. That is simply what the amendment does.

Where did the Deputy get that from?

I never said that.

I appreciate all the kind invitations to Donegal. It must be the second most beautiful county in the country.

On a serious note, in fairness, Deputy Ward has lived through this and understands. I certainly do not intend to get into the minutiae and discuss various cases. A plethora of potential situations have been raised by Deputies, but the simple way to explain things is that the amendment attempts to address what we were told was rigidity in the scheme. We were told the old scheme was restrictive when…

We can issue a briefing note.

I thank the Minister for outlining the amendments. I also thank him for his commitment to this issue. He met those impacted at a very early stage, listened to their concerns, understood the need for flexibility in the legislation and very quickly sought to bring forward this amendment. We are not there yet - there are several Stages to go through - but clearly he has outlined the urgency of this l…

That is not true.