I extend my full support to the people from Donegal and others who are in Dublin today to call for 100% redress for homeowners affected by mica. Homeowners have long said that the current scheme is not fit for the purpose. The time for action is now.

On another matter, I will talk about an inequality in our system that continues to affect some parents who are not married but are cohabiting, many of whom are in long-term, committed relationships. The organisation Treoir, which works with parents who are not married to each other, brought this to my attention. Recently, it has been supporting a number of families who find themselves disadvantaged because of their marital status.

Treoir told me of a father who lost his life partner and the mother of their three children earlier this year due to Covid-19. Although they had been living together for 20 years they never got married. A married man in a similar situation would be entitled to the widower's grant, an €8,000 support provided through the Department of Social Protection. This can be a very important support when one loses a loved one. This unmarried father was unable to access the widower's pension because he was not married to his life partner. This unmarried couple both paid their PRSI. If they had been married for just one day, the partner would have been entitled to the widower's pension and grant. These children are being denied the opportunity to benefit from a State support that children of married parents benefit from. For all other social protection supports, these unmarried parents would be assessed as a married couple but for the widower's grant and pension these people are assessed as individuals. This is not right. The recent Citizens' Assembly report on gender equality calls for a constitutional change to protect families, with protection not limited to the marital families.

I support Treoir's call for the Government to extend the widower's grant to cohabiting couples and to put in place a pension scheme for cohabiting couples. I lost my mother at a very young age. There were nine of us. If my father did not get the supports we needed from the State, we would never have survived. Therefore, we must really look at the issue of unmarried people, some of whom have been living together for 20 years, and support them in some way, shape or form going forward. It is a debate that we need to take seriously. I call on the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and the Minister of State to do so.

I would like to raise the issue that has been mentioned here today, namely, the mica crisis. I totally support the campaigners who are beginning their protest at Convention Centre Dublin and marching to the Dáil today. I have had experience with the pyrite remediation scheme. It worked very well. It was introduced with a level 3 assessment from an engineer, which was a visual inspection. From there, the programme rolled out. The mica redress scheme is being assessed completely differently, as we are aware. In fairness, the Government has addressed the issue, but has only come 90% of the way. At this stage, we need to go the final furlong.

The €8,000 that people have to come up with to start their assessment and get the ball rolling is just too big of a lump sum to begin with. The county council should possibly bear that burden. Also, there are a few other issues that are causing the scheme to stall currently. The cap of €275,000 is too low. So far, around 50 homes have been assessed. The average size of the homes assessed is 2,500 sq. ft, while the original estimated figure in respect of these houses was just over 2,000 sq. ft. The payment of €120,000 or €130,000 per cost of rebuild for these houses should probably be linked under the scheme. The 10% shortfall is also a problem with the scheme. Holiday homes are exempt. Getting insurance is a problem for people who, in some cases, rebuild the outside leaf of their house but are not rebuilding the internal leaf. They will need some sort of State guarantee going forward.

Finally, I would like to mention the chair of the mica redress committee, Councillor Martin McDermott, who has been doing Trojan work on this issue. Indeed, I met Councillor McDermott and the group leader for Fianna Fáil, Councillor Ciaran Brogan, in the last few weeks . They outlined to me the issues and the problems that they face on the ground and the work that needs to be done. I know that the Taoiseach visited Donegal. I have also spoken to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage about the issue. I know that work is being done. Hopefully, we will have some clear news after the Cabinet meeting today.