Across the State, tens of thousands of homeowners and tenants are living in homes built during the Celtic tiger era that have serious building defects. These homes typically have no fire stopping measures, causing significant fire safety concerns. At the most extreme, they have no adequate fire escapes. Many properties have water ingress, that is, moisture seeping into the structure of the building, slowly eroding the fabric of the home over time. People have to deal with damp and mould and, in the long term, their homes will crumble apart. Other homes have issues with car parks, cladding, communal doors and lifts.

These homeowners bought their homes in good faith. They paid their hard cash for their homes. Tenants in both social and private rental accommodation pay their rent on time and yet find themselves living in unsafe and insecure defective homes. They did nothing wrong. Those responsible in the first instance are the builders and developers who ignored basic fire safety and building standards but the State also has a responsibility because light-touch regulation and a lack of independent local authority inspection allowed this to happen. Yet, to date, homeowners have been left to foot the bill for dodgy building and weak regulation.

When they retired, Gary and Lorraine Carew bought their dream home in Brú na Sionna in Ennis. They looked forward to their life free from debt after decades of hard work. However, after they moved in, defects were discovered and they now face bills running into tens of thousands of euro in their retirement. In my own constituency, homeowners of hundreds of apartments in the Ivy Exchange development on Parnell Street face bills of anything up to €80,000 to deal with defects for which they bear no responsibility. Sam and Odette Doran live in an apartment in Parkwest, which they bought during the Celtic tiger period. The hard-working couple were sold the dream of secure home ownership in one of our city's new suburbs. Today, they face a bill of up to €40,000 to fix defects they did not cause. Like their neighbours and like so many other families, they simply do not have that kind of money. To add insult to injury, on the discovery of these defects in Parkwest, the insurance company for the apartments pushed up the premiums year on year, from €30,000 to a staggering €190,000 per year, with homeowners on the hook for that bill. This insurance company has now threatened to walk away completely, which is a really frightening prospect.

Sam and Odette, Lorraine and Gary and all of the others are part of the Not Our Fault 100% Redress campaign. Along with the Construction Defects Alliance, the group has been campaigning for redress for years and is protesting outside the Dáil today. Caithfidh an Rialtas gealltanas a sholáthar dóibh siúd a bhfuil cónaí orthu i dtithe ina bhfuil lochtanna ó thréimhse an tíogair Cheiltigh. Níor cheart go mbeadh ar na daoine seo billí na bhforbróirí agus an drochrialaithe a íoc. Last year, the Government finally agreed to put in place a defects redress scheme. On 18 January of this year, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, met with the families and promised them two things: emergency funding for essential fire safety and other works to be made available this year and the publication of legislation to underpin the redress scheme before the end of this year. There are now five weeks left in the Dáil calendar and there has been no emergency funding and no legislation has been published. When will that funding be available? When will we see the legislation? When will the full redress scheme be opened for applications?

I thank the Deputy for raising this really important issue, which affects tens of thousands of people around the country, including people in the Deputy's constituency and my own. As I have disclosed previously, I am personally affected, as are other members of the Cabinet. We appreciate that Government intervention is required. In some cases, people are able to pay the levy and in other cases they are not. Very often, in multi-unit developments, work is not done because some people are unable to pay, which creates huge difficulties for people. Of course, the cost of this work is increasing all of the time. There are also insurance implications, as the Deputy mentioned in her contribution. The Government has made a commitment, which we will stand over, to help in the very short term with emergency works required for fire safety and in the near term to help people with the cost of these repairs. There will be retrospection because we do not want to discourage people from getting the work done and making the payments where they can.

The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has been working to progress the various programmes of work required to put in place this scheme on a statutory footing. This includes the remediation of fire safety, structural safety and water ingress defects in purpose-built apartment buildings, including duplexes, constructed between 1991 and 2013. It was always anticipated that the scheme would take time to develop and we have always sought to convey that message. It is expected that the draft legislation will be published in early 2024. Subject to the legislative process, the scheme will be in place shortly thereafter. While the Minister is working on the legislation as a matter of priority, sufficient time is required to draft the legislation to ensure the scheme is fit for purpose, provides value for taxpayers and contains appropriate oversight and governance measures. We are committed to helping affected homeowners to get their homes and lives back together. This will require a robust scheme and it will take a period of time to bring forward the legislation required to underpin it.

The scale of defects in apartments and duplexes is significant. It is estimated that, of those apartments, duplexes and associated common areas constructed between 1991 and 2013, the number that may be affected by one or more fire safety, structural safety or water ingress defects is likely to range between 50% and 80%. That equates to between 60,000 and 100,000 apartments and duplexes. It is estimated that the average cost will be approximately €25,000 per unit, which means a potential cost to the Exchequer of €1.5 billion to €2.5 billion.

This is a significant piece of work that we have to do. It is much greater than would have been the case with pyrite, for example. We are working on it as a matter of priority.

We can agree that the scale of this is huge. I hope we can also agree that, along with builders and developers, the State bears considerable responsibility for this fiasco. Let us remember the details. We talk about defects. We have families living in homes that are not safe, that do not have adequate fire safety protection and, in the worst-case scenarios, have inadequate fire escapes. That is terrifying. There can be no excuse for delays to the emergency funding. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, would want to get the finger out. He met these families in January and we are in November. It is not acceptable to leave people in this scenario on the hook for huge and crippling sums of money, with the real anxiety and fear that brings for families. I would like a specific date from the Taoiseach for the emergency funding. Likewise with the legislation, this has drifted and drifted. We know the liability here is very large but we also know where the culpability lies. I hope we can all agree as a Dáil that hardworking families, homeowners and renters cannot be left in this desperate situation any longer.

We can all agree that there are a number of entities that bear responsibility for this - builders in some cases and other professionals involved in the construction business. The State also has a degree of responsibility, particularly pre-2014, when building regulations were not what they are now and were not enforced in the way they are now. Ultimately, while the State will pick up the bill for almost all of this work, the cost inevitably falls back on the taxpayer and the people. That is what happens in these scenarios and that is unfortunately where we are.

On fire safety, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is working with the Housing Agency on advice and guidance that owners and management companies can take when carrying out such fire safety works. This includes funding mechanisms for interim fire safety measures in extreme cases. The Minister will publish further details of this in the coming weeks.