The Mica Action Group has been in existence since 2014. I want the Taoiseach to reflect on that for a minute. A group of individuals and families whose homes were crumbling were forced to join together in order to raise awareness about this devastating and extremely dangerous situation, after being ignored and essentially abandoned by the Government. The last eight years have brought nothing but stress and heartbreak to this group. After its pleas fell on deaf ears, it became expert on mica and defective blocks. It gathered its own evidence and carried out testing.

I cannot understand why the Government continues to ignore the Mica Action Group and homeowners of defective properties in Donegal and across the country. We were told this time last year by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, that we would see a scheme before Christmas 2021. He waited almost an entire term to then rush legislation through at the last minute before the summer break and allow for very little scrutiny. We were told by the Minister that he would not engage in pre-legislative scrutiny for the revised scheme as the priority was to rebuild effective houses urgently. However, we are now coming to the end of October and the scheme is still not in place. I am not sure if we will see it before Christmas this year.

The Mica Action Group released another letter to the Minister yesterday, which I would like to bring to the attention of the House. It is very important we all know what is really going on on the ground in Donegal. Part of the letter reads:

Homeowners are becoming collateral damage. Their exposure to physical and psychological hazards is being unnecessarily prolonged due to the intransigent, unempathetic and lackadaisical way in which all aspects of the current revised scheme are being handled. The contrast between government rhetoric and the reality experienced ... in Donegal could not be starker.

The Government can come into the Chamber and talk all it likes about how its priority is to rebuild houses, but the reality is that since the launch of the scheme two years ago, only 14 houses have been rebuilt. It is very clear that the Government's priorities do not lie with affected homeowners. Not only that, it is clear that the Government is actually trying to shift the blame away from it and light-touch regulation and onto homeowners. This is shown through the recent concrete levy, for which it has blamed homeowners in a pathetic attempt to divide the public and isolate affected homeowners who had no control over what happened to them.

The truth is that the Government would rather have members of the public turn against each other before admitting it was Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil policies that have created the mica crisis and the current housing crisis.

We are already paying for defective blocks. If the Government wants to put a levy on the concrete industry, why not tax the profits the industry makes? That would at least make it look as though the Government wants to attempt to make the people who are responsible for this crisis pay for it. How long will the Taoiseach leave Donegal homeowners in limbo without any solution?

We need honesty in the debate.

Let us have honesty.

It is not two years ago. This is a new scheme that was introduced, as the Deputy has just said, via legislation in this House. It is a new scheme because homeowners and representative groups did not believe the previous scheme, which was welcomed by the Deputies in the House at the time, went far enough. We met residents and representative groups and dramatically improved the scheme with regard to issues around giving financial assistance for all of the pre-costs such as engineering costs and dealing with the rental issue.

I met the representative body well over a year ago and we dealt with all of those issues and that should be acknowledged. There is no point in creating this sort of narrative that the Government is out to get people or undermine them. The Deputy used a terrible phrase when he said the Government was blaming homeowners for the levy. That is a shocking thing to say because it is not what Government is doing. The Deputy should know that because the Government has, at this stage, signed off on approximately €2.8 billion for the mica scheme. It has been signed off and provided for now in the finances. That is not rhetoric. It is financial provision.

The issue is delivery and getting the houses that need urgent remediation or demolition and reconstruction done. The regulations and guidance documents are being worked on by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in consultation with the relevant stakeholders, because people want to be involved all along the way in how this scheme will be shaped, designed and progressed. It cannot be a case of the Department issuing edicts on this and we have further responses that delay it even further. The ambition is to roll out the new scheme before the end of this year or, at worst, in early 2023.

I continue to put pressure on to see whether we can get this done as quickly as we can while involving all stakeholders because, as far as I am concerned, the houses that are most damaged should be done very quickly. We will get a sense of timelines over the next number of years. Much depends on the acuity of the situation. Some houses are in a very bad way. We want those houses replaced. There is nothing I and the entire Government want to see more than houses being demolished and built, where that is required. I understand there are approximately 300 in that bracket at the moment, with a further 300 coming on-stream. It is doable.

The concrete levy was basically that the Government had decided on expenditure of approximately between €4.5 billion and potentially €6 billion into the future involving pyrite, mica and apartment defects, just like the insurance levy of yesteryear when issues arose with the insurance industry. The mechanism has been used before but it also shows that we have revenue streams to match very significant Government expenditure. That is the only agenda there which, in the light of what is going on globally with the volatility of markets and all that, has a ring of credibility to it.

The levy the Government is proposing means that people will have to pay twice because they will be paying through general taxation for the renewal of this scheme and the levy will be imposed on people who want to build and need to provide houses for themselves. Why not impose a levy on the profits of the building and construction companies and banks? Why not go after them? The Government has not bothered-----

It is the same with cows.

-----because it is easier to go after the individuals in the houses. It seems as though this levy is being put on the companies but it is not. It is a levy on the cost of building a house. The Government should at least try to make it look as if it is going after the profits of the company.

The Taoiseach may say he wants to make this scheme right and there may be €2.8 billion written off for this but not one penny has been spent and there is nothing happening. The 300 or 400 houses the Taoiseach says need to be addressed are unfortunately the tip of the iceberg. It will be thousands of houses.

Where are people going to live while their houses are being done? Even if we attempt to do 50 houses per year in Donegal, where are those 50 families going to go? There is nowhere. What is the Government doing to put in place temporary accommodation for those people? That should all be going along now. We should not be arriving in January and deciding we need this. That would lead to a delay of another year or more, which would be wrong. People see this all the time. They live and breathe this whole mica crisis. They know exactly what is happening there. They know what can be done. If the Government would talk to them and take that on board, it would make a huge difference.

I suggest that as many people as possible should attend the conference that is due to take place in Atlantic Technological University in Letterkenny on 15 November, when the Mica Action Group will hear from international experts on the impact of deleterious material.

I thank the Deputy.

That is supported by the EU so it should be a key to everybody as to how people can get through this crisis.

The Deputy has already benefited from extra time because the clock is not functioning.

It is vitally important that the Government acts now to make it happen.

We are not trying to make it look as if we are going after somebody, which is what the Deputy is saying we should do.

What did I say?

He is saying we should try to make it look like we are going after the industry. That is not what we are at.

You are going after the people.

We are not trying to make it look like anything.

You are going after the people. That is what you are doing.

No, we are not going after the people.

You are.

I know that there are campaigns, and political representatives will say things to ensure they are in tandem with those campaigns, but the Government has provided €2.8 billion.

You have not provided anything yet.

Through the Chair, we have provided €2.8 billion to deal with this. That decision has been taken. The money has been bookended and financially provided for in the Government accounts and so on, so that is not rhetoric; it is real. As for the design of the scheme, the guidance documentation is substantial with respect to how the Housing Finance Agency, local authorities and all the various stakeholders engage and make this happen. We want this to happen. However, there have been various representatives all along the way, as the Deputy knows, about amending the scheme, changing it and making it more attractive. That has taken a fair degree of time over the last year.

I thank the Taoiseach.

What I would say through the Chair is-----

We are over time.

I have one final point. No matter how you apply any levy, and regardless of what the Deputy says about profits, nothing stops it from ending up on the very people he is saying would suffer.

At least the Government would be trying to target-----

We are over time.

The Deputy knows that too. He must know that.

Tá mé ag bogadh ar aghaidh.

He must know that is the truth.

Through the Chair please. We are moving on.