In her column today, Miriam Lord paints an eye-opening picture of the moment homeowners affected by the mica controversy come face-to-face with politicians in their new surroundings.
“In the blazing sunshine of a June afternoon, with the River Liffey on one side and the Royal Canal on another, they marched together in their thousands until they reached the towering modern building which has been a home to Dáil Éireann for the last few months.
“When TDs need to move due to Covid-19 concerns they get a glass-fronted, steel-framed and stone-clad architectural landmark to expensively accommodate the handful of deputies who turn up for sittings in its near-empty auditorium.”
The visual contrast could hardly be more stark. Some of the protestors turned up holding parts of their crumbling homes aloft.
In a sign of the fierce pressure that the Government is coming under on this issue, the Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien has convened a committee to report back to him by the end of July with proposals about how to address the problem.
While it serves to take some of the immediate heat out of the situation, there could be political danger ahead yet.
On our front page today, Harry McGee and Pat Leahy report that the Government has told affected families that it will pay as close as possible to 100 per cent for remediation works to their homes but will not agree to an unlimited scheme offering full compensation.
Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien told representatives of the families on Tuesday the existing State compensation scheme - which offers 90 per cent of remediation costs, up to a maximum of €275,000 - will be expanded.
As my colleagues report, there is likely to be some sort of cap as not to do so would “make it impossible to provide a budgetary figure, would have legal consequences and would not be best practice.”
The cost of the scheme is already expected to be as much as €1.5 billion.
In the Dáil yesterday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin made some telling comments in revealing the Government’s own dissatisfaction with the situation.
He said “I have an issue with certain people walking away from this. That is my issue. Who supplied the blocks? Who designed them?,” as he referenced people walking “off the pitch.”
“The State cannot forever be held accountable alone in respect of behaviours or actions where others fell short, be they in the private sector or elsewhere.”
He also said a separate piece of work needs to be presided “to examine this in greater detail in terms of how it came to be that thousands and thousands of homes were supplied with an appalling block.”
Any companies who supplied the building products are probably likely to say that their products abided by all Government standards and regulations at the time.
The question of blame may seem like a secondary issue when the damage is already done, but the feeling clearly is that the State does not want be left carrying the full weight of this growing controversy with all its consequences.
And they’re off...
The race to fill the seat vacated by the former minister for housing Eoghan Murphy will crank up a notch today when a date of July 8th is set for the byelection.
A writ will be moved in the Dáil just after 12:30pm which will set the polling day, and then gloves are officially off.
Nearly all of the candidates posted pictures of their teams out in various parts of the constituencies last night working up a sweat.
Fine Gael will be somewhat occupied, however, by its Ard Fheis which is taking place online on evenings throughout the week. Last night, party leader Leo Varadkar delivered a strongly pro-united Ireland speech saying that he believes “in the unification of our island and I believe it can happen in my lifetime”. It’s not the first time that he has made similar comments but it was striking how far he went not just in advocating to unify the island but also in attacking Sinn Féin.
He hit out at what he called the “crude vision espoused by Sinn Féin”, which he described as “a cold form of republicanism, socialist, narrow nationalism, protectionist, anti-British, euro-critical, ourselves alone, 50 per cent plus one and nobody else is needed”.
It’s also notable how this leaves Fianna Fáil, so often in the past the more strident voice on this issue, somewhat in the dust and playing catch-up.
It likely won’t play much of a role in the byelection campaign but that realigning or reinforcing of party values surely is something to watch beyond July 8th.
Here is a full news piece on that speech.
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Playbook
Dáil Éireann
The Labour Party is up first with a Bill which would give local authorities the power to CPO development land at its existing use value plus 25 per cent. That’s at 10am. Expect Leaders’ Questions at noon followed by questions on promised legislation. The writ to kick start the byelection will be moved around 12:34. There will be Taoiseach’s Questions just after lunch and then statements on the CAP negotiations.
The full schedule can be found here.
Seanad
The Seanad resumes on Friday at 9:30am.
Committees
There is another busy day ahead in the committee rooms. One hearing that you can expect to hear news from will be the 12:30 meeting of the health committee where the chief medical officer Tony Holohan will be questioned on the role of antigen testing. The Joint Committee on Tourism, Sports, Arts, and Media will hear from representatives of the new Future of Media Commission, also at 12:30.
Read the full and detailed schedule here.
