The Taoiseach should put on his day-vision goggles to see what is going on.

The Taoiseach might acquire clear-vision goggles.

This morning I spoke to a young working mother with two children. She works hard and her priority is putting her two kids through school and college. In 2009 one of her dreams came true when she bought an affordable home in Longboat Quay here in Dublin. Last night she learned to her horror that she may be evacuated from her home within a week. Not just her and her two children, but all of the 299 families that live in Longboat Quay may have to move out. Why is that? The reason is that their homes are firetraps. Built at the height of the boom by Bernard McNamara and the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, Longboat Quay has been plagued with problems for years. Remedial work carried out to date has cost the docklands authority €1.2 million. Owners have now been told they have to pay up to €18,000 each to make their homes safe, or they will have move out. The total cost of the required fire safety works is €4 million.

The woman I was speaking to and her neighbours paid anything between €250,000 and €600,000 for their homes but they were not built properly. They do not meet fire safety standards, yet the developer, the builders, the architects and the planning authority will not be penalised and it is the owners who are being asked to foot the bill. Bernard McNamara, meanwhile, having run up debts of €2 billion during the boom, is now, I understand, debt free and back in the property business.

A question, please.

This is not the first time such a situation has unfolded; it is not a unique scenario. I have two questions for the Taoiseach. First, where is the legislation that is required to provide home owners and the taxpayer with the protection they need? Second, will the Taoiseach personally intervene with Bernard McNamara to ensure he and those responsible for Longboat Quay foot the bill and are held accountable?

Is he is one of yours, Micheál? Timmy would know. I think he stood for election once.

Careful, Dinny. Look in your own corner.

Will you stay please quiet?

I have read the account of what has happened here-----

Was he a Fianna Fáil councillor?

He went for the Dáil as well, did he not?

Will you let the Taoiseach reply?

I have read this account. Obviously, Deputy McDonald has spoken to someone who actually lives there. This is not the first time this has happened. We recall Priory Hall and the firetraps that were discovered there, and the difficulties that went on for quite some time, including court cases, before that matter was eventually sorted out.

Who built that?

We recall the late Deputy Shane McEntee dealing with pyrite in houses that were built and then became unsuitable for those who paid big money for them. Now, we have a situation like this.

As Deputy McDonald is well aware, under the legislation, planning permission is issued on certain conditions. Unfortunately, because of the over-enthusiasm that was being followed with regard to the whole building boom during the so-called Celtic tiger years, nobody policed the quality of the building that went into these houses and estates. I am quite sure that if the planning application and the conditions that applied to the structure of those houses had been implemented properly by a clerk of works or a project manager, this would not have happened.

The clerk of works.

Given the rush to cut corners and the rush to make money, people now find, years afterwards, having paid very good money and having mortgaged themselves for that, the house they live in is a firetrap. This is grossly unacceptable and is not an easy situation to sort out. I would like to find out more about this, in discussion with the city council and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. I cannot give a judgment at this stage. The point Deputy McDonald raises is of particular difficulty and I am sure great stress to the people who live in those houses. Unfortunately, it is not the first case. When Priory Hall was raised in this forum, I said I hoped it would be the only case, but clearly it is not and there may be others in the system as well.

If the Taoiseach or I walk into a shop today and purchase something, and we subsequently discover that it is faulty, we can return that item, have it exchanged or get our money back. However, if, like the home owners in Longboat Quay, one buys a house that was not built properly, the responsibility for making the property good rests with the purchaser. That is essentially what has happened here and it is, as the Taoiseach correctly says, grossly unfair and unacceptable.

The Taoiseach has a responsibility to address this issue. These scenarios have played out before and I fear we will see many more such cases. However, the question that arises for this particular woman, who is from just one of the families affected, is "What happens next?" She has been asked, at short notice, to put her hands on €18,000. She does not have that money nor does she have the prospect of it. Failure to come up with it means that she, along with her young family, will be evacuated. That is the position.

Thank you Deputy.

I asked the Taoiseach if he would intervene with Mr. Bernard McNamara and I would like him to answer that question. I believe he should intervene, that he should telephone Bernard McNamara and the other responsible authorities and ask them to make good on that €4 million.

Did Deputy McDonald telephone McFeely?

We spoke yesterday about the homeless crisis.

Sorry, the Deputy is over time.

We know the figures. They may be statistics for some people, but they involve real families. The last thing this State needs is 900 more people evacuated from their homes. Will the Taoiseach call Mr. McNamara? Will he put him under pressure to come up with this money? He is back in business and things seem to be good for him again.

Thank you Deputy. The Deputy is way over time.

I will finish on this. We need legislative change and adequate provisions in this area. We need changes in the fire safety Acts and building regulations. The Taoiseach knows this needs to happen. His Minister for fiascos, Deputy Alan Kelly, surely knows this. How is it that this change has not happened and that these families are left in this dire, stressful and utterly unacceptable situation?

The Deputy mentioned the legislation that applies in the case of items purchased in a shop, which can be returned if faulty. Where a person decides to apply for planning permission to build a house or building and does not build it in accordance with the planning permission, the authority concerned is entitled to bring the builder to court to enforce compliance with the regulations. The problem in this country is due to a time when there was a rush to give planning permissions for buildings. I do not know the details of the planning of the buildings concerned but I am sure permission for them was given in good faith and that it was expected the construction would be carried out in accordance with the building conditions and regulations, which would mean they would not be fire hazards.

We cannot allow a situation where when an inspection says these places are fire hazards, we expect people to live in them. The problem is that there was nobody to police the quality of the buildings that were constructed in those cases. Any good clerk of works would have said the building was not in accordance with the regulations, that he would bring the builder to court, make him knock the building down and rebuild it in accordance with the conditions.

The Taoiseach refuses to bring in the tractors.

What is the Taoiseach going to do?

I have not spoken to Mr. McNamara for a number of years. I do not know whether in raising this issue here the Deputy has attempted to speak to him herself.

We are over time.

I need to know more about whether there was a HomeBond insurance scheme in place for any of these houses or whether there was any other insurance scheme. We had evidence the other day of houses that were bulldozed and rebuilt. We are aware that HomeBond was able to deal with a number of houses involving pyrite before that fund ran out. We had all of the complications between the city, council, local authority, City Hall and the courts in respect of Priory Hall.

It is still going on.

That took some shifting.

Will the Taoiseach contact Mr. McNamara?

I am not sure whether Deputy McDonald has spoken to Mr. McNamara or whether she has made any attempt to locate him.

I have no difficulty in trying to make contact with him, but I am not the Taoiseach.

The Deputy is not.

Hold on. The Taoiseach is way over time. Please adhere to the Chair.

I need to find out the details of this before I contact anybody. If I did contact him, he would have a different story to tell.