In recent hours, the online news publication, The Ditch, has revealed further controversy surrounding the Government's failing defective blocks scheme. It has emerged that in more than 20 cases, a Donegal County Council-operated portal had altered the recommendations of the homeowners' engineers. What I find interesting, or perhaps more appropriately described as disturbing, is that in each case the alteration, which Donegal County Council claims is a minor technical glitch, resulted in the original engineering recommendation aligning with a downgraded option recommended by the Housing Agency-appointed engineers' desktop appraisals. It would be naive to attribute this to a mere coincidence.

There is also the statement from Engineers Ireland at the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach on the issue of IS 465 earlier this year, that it is "the view of many engineers that the existing standard is no longer fit-for-purpose where the mechanism of deterioration remains uncertain and developments in the scientific understanding of this issue must be appropriately considered." Further, they said:

A survey conducted in March 2024 of members of Engineers Ireland's IS 465 register has shown that 75% of engineers employed by homeowners have experienced having a recommendation for option 1 revised to another option by a framework engineer employed by the Housing Agency with respect to the same property.

The Taoiseach can see how this is leading to frustration among residents of County Donegal, who have had to engage with the scheme despite its many other flaws. I will not list them here again on the record if the Taoiseach promises to reciprocate and not recite again the standard reply so often delivered unthinkingly, without reference to the particular question, by his predecessors in that seat and by the Minister since the announcement of a so-called enhanced scheme.

The science now confirms the primary problem is internal sulphate attack, yet three years on from the trumpeted scheme announcement, we do not have a date for the review of IS 465. These instances, together with a litany of others such as a lack of proper engagement with homeowners' representatives on the unresolved issue of mortgageability, have contributed to confidence being undermined in the whole scheme in the eyes of those affected homeowners. Taoiseach, can you acknowledge that you are hearing the frustrations of my constituents in Donegal and accept that confidence has been eroded to a significant extent? Will you commit to giving a definitive date for when a revised and-or replaced IS 465 will be published so they can have some clarity?

I thank Deputy Pringle for raising this matter. Yes, I do acknowledge that I hear the frustrations of your constituents as articulated by you. You have made specific reference to claims or information in respect of Donegal County Council which I have yet to see. I will certainly ask the Minister for housing to pursue them with the local authority and to revert to you directly. I would like clarity on the matter myself.

You specifically raised the issue of IS 465. The NSAI is Ireland's official standards body. It is an autonomous body under the responsibility of the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. My understanding is that the NSAI recently, I think on 13 September, provided an update on the status of the review of IS 465. The review will initially take the form of an extensive amendment to the testing protocol. I am informed that the drafting of this amendment is nearing conclusion. The NSAI/TC63 has considered the interim output from the Geological Survey of Ireland managed research regarding internal sulphate attack, and testing to identify that as well as other highly reactive forms of iron sulphide will be included in the amended IS 465. Changes will also include updates to the building condition assessment and sampling protocols, taking account of the information currently available, including the learnings from the application of the current standard. The amendment will be published by the NSAI for a period of public engagement and stakeholders will be able to engage with this process using the Your Standard, Your Say platform which can be accessed via the NSAI website. All comments in respect of these protocols received during the consultation will then be fed in by the technical committee as part of its final recommendation.

I will specifically see if I can find a more precise timeline for the Deputy but that is the update I have today. I will also put it in writing to him as I am conscious there is quite a lot of technical information. What they are telling me here is that the current drafting process for the amendment has been progressing well with substantial commitment and input from the voluntary members. I thank them for that. Every effort has been made to complete committee deliberations and produce a public consultation draft amendment in quarter 3 of this year. However, it is now expected that the draft amendment will be published by the NSAI in quarter 4 for public consultation. Following the publication of any revised standard, the DCB grant scheme will be reviewed at that point in the event of such amendments being required. The Government also made a number of other amendments which the Deputy may be aware of and which I am happy to come back to in my further reply.

The Taoiseach outlined the process whereby IS 465 is going to be amended. No doubt it is going to be extremely slow. Already in his response, he outlined that it was to be published in quarter 3 but now it is quarter 4. Who is to say it is not going to be quarter 1 or 2 of next year? Homeowners are going to be suffering on under this existing scheme for a long time and for the foreseeable future. We have no clarity on when this is actually going to happen. In the meantime, Donegal County Council has altered the results that have come through from the Housing Agency on the website as well, which is not on and should not be happening.

This is further undermining people's confidence in this scheme. We have also seen over the past couple months that the Attorney General has written to the Minister for housing advising him that the purpose of the scheme was to save the State money, rather than deal with defective blocks and defective households. The purpose of the whole scheme seems to be to save the State money, whereas it is the State that caused this problem in the first place. By its lax oversight of the building and construction industry, the State caused this problem by allowing defective blocks to go into the process.

The State needs to step up quickly. I urge the Taoiseach to ensure the amendments will be put through straightaway, rather than wait for months and months to begin that as well.

In respect of Donegal County Council and the specific issue the Deputy raised, which has just come into the public domain, I will ask the Minister to revert to him and to engage with the local authority. I take the point about not wishing to see any further slippage and the importance of adhering to timelines, and I will certainly keep a very close eye on that.

I think we have a bit of balance in regard to this. I can only imagine the frustration, the stress, the sheer trauma that people must be living with if their own home is crumbling in front of their eyes, and the concerns they would have for their children, their parents and the well-being of their family. I get that, but it is important to acknowledge that the State has put in place a massive level of financial resource to try to respond to this. We are, in real time, continuing to engage and make improvements where we can. The Deputy raised the issue of childcare, for example, previously and I gave him the position of the Government in respect of line Departments trying to respond to that.

Even today, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, brought a memo to the Government to increase the current scheme cap for remediation options and ancillary grants by the maximum allowed. The memo also requested an increase in the grant rates under the scheme. Extending these increases to wider groups of relevant owners requires amending the 2022 Act, and the Minister will bring a separate proposal to the Government to give effect to this policy intention in order that the increases can apply retrospectively. Even today, therefore, we are seeing more proposals at Government to try to make further improvements to respond to the issues we are hearing from people in the Deputy’s constituency.