Debate contribution: Defective Premises Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Mark Durkan on 11 June 2024.

MLA

Mr Mark Durkan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

11 June 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Defective Premises Bill: Consideration Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4495972

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Speaker. You can do it if you want, Daniel. I welcome the opportunity to speak today on our proposed sensible and sensitive amendment to an important piece of legislation that will afford more protections to homeowners and occupiers. The majority of Members who have spoken have outlined the suboptimal nature of accelerated passage, including the Minister. It is certainly less than satisfactory. It reminds one of the old adage: legislate in haste, repent at leisure. The aim of our amendment is to make sure that we have nothing to repent. I wonder whether the DUP will repent for the two years that it left us without an Assembly and Executive, and left people without the protections that the legislation will, hopefully, afford them.

Yes.

The amendment — I will come to this in detail in the body of my speech — as my colleague outlined, provides other options and routes to recourse for those affected. As was outlined by Mr McCrossan, there is a significant disparity between the North and England and Wales in the limitation periods for legal action regarding defective buildings. That disparity leaves homeowners here at a significant disadvantage, unable to seek timely access to justice and compensation, the impact of which, as we have heard today, has had devastating consequences for so many families across this island. Aligning our limitation periods is not only fair but essential to protect the rights of homeowners in the North and to ensure equitable treatment across jurisdictions. It is important that we get this right, and that we future-proof it, so that more people will not be left high and dry, like so many thousands of families in the South and, of late, so many apartment owners in south Belfast. Our amendment future-proofs existing legislation by offering legal protections for a situation that not only has plagued our neighbours in the South of Ireland but is now rearing its ugly head here in the North. The unfolding disaster of defective building materials is already here, and it is, sadly and scarily, inevitable that the situation will become more pronounced in the time ahead.

We need to address the matter now. The Executive mindset has been, "Why should we do something today that can be put off to next year, the year after or the year after that?". I am shocked but not surprised that other parties are putting all their eggs into the "We'll bring another Bill in the future" basket. How many times were we caught with that one in the last mandate, which has led to less than satisfactory legislation on private tenancies, gambling and even licensing?

I have been contacted by several constituents directly impacted by the issue. To date, their cries to government have fallen on deaf ears. Homeowners across the border in Donegal, Mayo and Limerick, closer to home and, indeed, at home — I am aware of cases in Derry — have seen their lives upended by the use of substandard materials in the building of their homes. They face unimaginable stress, financial ruin and the loss of their most valuable asset, namely their children's home. All the while, the walls of what should be their sanctuary are crumbling around them. Despite what the Minister might think or wish, we are not talking about a faraway land; the cases are a stone's throw from my constituency. All of us will have constituents who own holiday homes in the South and have been cruelly excluded from any redress. I appeal to the Minister to raise the issue at the NSMC and to ensure that his legislation excludes no one on the basis of their permanent residence.

It will remove ambiguity. I have to ask the Minister this: what do the existing regs or legislation do when people whose properties have been affected by mica and other defective materials have come to his Department and the Department of Finance and not got any answers, not even, "Oh, sorry, your building is seven years old, so you are outside the six years". They have just been told, "This is nothing to do with us". The legislation before us will extend the validity of the existing provisions, but excuse me for thinking that it might not do the job that the Minister thinks it will.

I thank the Minister — well, I am not sure that I do thank him — for that latest intervention. The number of cases to date — seven — is small, but it is the tip of a potentially large iceberg. I am not sure what redress those cases have received. There are other cases, and Mr McCrossan has written on behalf of constituents to various Departments. I am not blaming the Minister or even necessarily his Department for this, but those people have not been told what protections exist in legislation for them. The Minister confirmed to me earlier that there were six social housing properties in Derry that the Department was aware of as early as 2018. That begs the question as to why action was not taken at that point and why, in 2021, the then Minister for the same Department denied any knowledge or responsibility and advised that the issue had not been identified north of the border. There are and have been inconsistencies in the Department on the issue. Also in 2022, the Finance Minister, Conor Murphy, denied that it had anything to do with him. When asked about his engagement with the Irish Government on the matter, he said that his Department did not have policy responsibility for housing. We already knew that, and therefore those conversations did not happen. However, his response suggested that Minister Hargey at DFC held that responsibility and chose not to intervene. That was particularly hypocritical given that, at that time, Minister Hargey's party, Sinn Féin, was rightly demanding 100% redress for those impacted in the South and decrying their abandonment by their Government while people here were denied the opportunity even to be heard. Instead, the door was slammed shut in their face. Through our amendment, we want to ensure that they can at least have a foot in the door and that that cannot happen again. I appreciate the Minister accepting his Department's responsibility for some elements of this because, to date, there has very much been a "Nothing to do with me" approach. We have spoken about Derry City and Strabane District Council's initiative to establish a register of defective premises. If there are only seven on that register, I fear that it will grow. On 6 January, when the council's director of environment and regeneration wrote to the Department's permanent secretary regarding defective mica blocks, officials responded in the same month to advise that the issue pertaining to defective mica blocks was a reserved matter and was not within the Department's responsibility. I am not sure how they received redress when, at the same time, the Department was denying any responsibility and saying that it was a reserved matter. That is why we need the amendment. It would put it in statute with no ifs, buts or shadows for anyone to hide in that there is protection for people. There has been no further correspondence with the council since then, as far as I can establish. I would like the Minister to commit to his Department re-engaging with the council on the issue and to assure it that existing legislation will cover any one landlord or property owner who comes forward in the future.

Yes.

1,260 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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