I want to raise a crisis situation facing hundreds of apartment and duplex owners in a major housing complex in Dublin South-West. Because of fire safety defects when they were constructed, they potentially face being locked out from accessing their apartments with the common areas being closed down by the fire officer. They are being told that each apartment and duplex owner will have to pay €15,000 to remedy these issues. Many of the people simply do not have that money; it is simply not possible. This is not their fault nor is it the fault of others in similar circumstances to them across Dublin and throughout the country. They did not know this when they bought their apartments; they could not possibly have known. They are the victims of an era of self-certification, poor regulation and shoddy building practices. The State needs step in here. We need to have a redress scheme to enable the work to be done.

Of course, it is not the apartment owners' fault. I assume the Deputy is aware that I established a working group on fire defects for apartments that has been working over the course of the last year. Most importantly, included in that have been the residents represented by the Apartment Owners Network and the Construction Defects Alliance. They put together the terms of reference; that was not influenced by me. I expect to receive the report very shortly. I take this issue very seriously. It is not the fault of the residents or apartment owners. When I receive it, I will bring the report to Government and we will consider what action we will take to help homeowners in this space. It has been a very extensive process with over 28,000 submissions received. We have the widest survey of the types of defects within these apartments and the report will reflect that. I will keep the House informed of progress.