Defective Concrete Blocks Social Homes Scheme 2026: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-30 ============================================================ Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister of State and his family. I also particularly welcome Deputy Charles Ward for his sterling work on this. I acknowledge Councillors Joy Beard, Denis McGee, Ali Farren and Tomás Seán Devine of the 100% Redress party. This is a registered political party that was activated by its advocacy work for people on the ground. We must not forget that. We live in a democracy. These people have a mandate from the people in their community that they represent. I work closely with them from time to time as issues arise. I acknowledge their significant input and the Deputy's leadership in that organisation. That is not to go without acknowledging the enormous work of Deputies of all parties and none on the ground, who have had to work under very challenging sets of circumstances. Today, Seanad Éireann has been asked to approve the defective concrete blocks social homes scheme 2026, which is standard practice. It is good parliamentary practice, and I am delighted the Minister of State has come here to set out the case for the motion. A copy of this motion draft form was laid before Seanad Éireann, so we would have an opportunity to consider it in some detail. I welcome the opportunity to speak here on what is an important matter. I do not talk about houses and places; I talk about homes. We are talking about family homes, where people live or are attempting to live under very difficult sets of circumstances. I draw no distinction between social and private housing. All housing is housing. It provides homes. All should be of equal standard. All equal issues in terms of redress should be across the board. I am conscious of section 13(6) of the 2022 Act, which provides for that, but let us be clear: the legislation provides for it but it needs to be acted on on the ground. I acknowledge the advocacy, as the public representatives have already done. Donegal, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Sligo and parts of the administrative local authority areas of Wexford, Fingal and Meath county councils are now under this scheme, and that is to be encouraged. Who is to say? There may be an opportunity - there may have to be an opportunity - to include others, but let us leave that for the moment. I will just touch on a few issues in the short time I have. One is about capacity, which has been touched on. Councils and approved housing bodies, AHBs, are set to be responsible for assessing the properties, appointing appropriate engineers and contractors and rehousing tenants if needed. That is an enormous additional workload in terms of the county managers' or their chief executives' capacity. There are issues of concern around that. I understand that the Department has had ongoing consultation with the AHBs and with the Irish Council for Social Housing, and that is important. That engagement must not stop now, and I ask the Minister of State to take that back to the senior Minister. The level of consultation with the Housing Agency and all local authorities must continue in a very positive way. Councils are concerned. The city and county managers have expressed concerns to the Department. I am aware of that. I have seen documentation so I am fully aware of what I am talking about. They have expressed concerns to the principal Minister in the Minister of State's Department about funding shortfalls and the capacity to approve landfill facilities, given the anticipated volumes of defective concrete blocks that will be required for disposal. Councils and AHBs have expressed serious concerns that they may be left with significant shortfalls in funding and remediation or rebuilding in terms of properties and replacing new homes. They have expressed this formally to the Department in their engagement in their representative group as sitting county managers, and we have to take that on board. The 100% Redress party described the proposed scheme as "a welcome step". That is an important step. I really wanted to know what 100% Redress thought. It said that it welcomed this and that it was a significant step but that significant concerns remained regarding governance. It had concerns about governance, tenancy rights, independent review mechanisms, staffing capacity and delivery of timelines. It went on to say in its statement that it feared that the draft scheme provides substantially fewer procedural protections for tenants than those available to private homeowners. I ask the Minister of State to take that on board and give the necessary reassurances as time goes on. The party added that a robust framework that incorporates independent technical review, tenant representation, dedicated staffing and delivery timelines will be essential to maintain the public confidence and the consistent decisions across all councils. They are valid points. I am absolutely supportive that we proceed with this motion. I fully support the Government's motion. Let us now just get on with it. We do not want any more history lessons about what happened in the past. We have to get forward, and the key message has to be constant monitoring, constant appraisal, constant communication and getting people back living in their homes of choice appropriate to their needs in their communities and moving on. I wish the Minister of State every success with this motion. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-09-30/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-30