Legislation to approve €2bn Mica redress scheme to go before Cabinet

A mica-affected home in Donegal with structural damage. File picture: Niall Carson/PA

Legislation to approve the €2bn enhanced redress scheme for Mica affected homes will go to Cabinet for approval next Tuesday.

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has said he wants the legislation “passed urgently” but said the level of support being extended to the homeowners is “unprecedented”.

“We've spent an incredible amount of time and effort in improving the existing scheme. And I'll be bringing a memo to the cabinet imminently in that regard, which will highlight a number of the very significant changes. 

"This is an intervention in the markets to help people and it's an intervention that goes beyond any comparison with anything that's ever been done before,” he said.

He said the residents have engaged very constructively with him and his officials. 

“I've listened to residents, I've met them my own team has met them. We meet them on at least a weekly basis, if not, in some instances a day a daily basis that is my own officials at a senior level,” he said.

Mr O’Brien said he wants the legislation passed as quickly as possible.

“We would need to get this legislation passed urgently. The existing scheme that was brought forward in early 2020 was not set up on a legislative basis. It was settled by regulation. 

"And that's not a robust way to have a scheme where there's going to be well over €2bn worth of Exchequer funding and to be able to help people bring their lives back,” he said.

A statement from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage said: "Minister O’Brien brought a Memorandum to Government on an enhanced Defective Concrete Blocks Grant Scheme on 30 November 2021. 

"In the six months since that memorandum, significant work has gone into the drafting of legislation for the scheme, including regular and ongoing engagement with homeowner representatives. 

"As part of the Government decision last November it was agreed that there would be a review of IS 465 [the protocol used to assess damage in properties affected by defective concrete blocks] and for the issue of Pyrrhotite to be considered. 

"This review is being undertaken by the NSAI [National Standards Authority of Ireland] and is under way."