The cost of a new scheme to repair homes affected by defective blocks has risen by €500 million, the Cabinet will be told on Tuesday.
Ministers will approve an extension of the scheme beyond Donegal and Mayo to counties Clare and Limerick. Last November the Cabinet agreed to finance an enhanced €2.2 billion scheme to rebuild and remediate an estimated 7,500 homes which have been structurally damaged by mica. Sources said this has now risen by €500 million because of the extension to other counties, inflation and labour costs.
The general scheme of the Bill will go to Cabinet on Tuesday, a source said. Another memo will follow next week seeking approval to publish the legislation.
Ministers last year agreed that 100 per cent redress would be available to affected homes up to a limit of €420,000 per home. The maximum grant will remain at €420,000, the Cabinet will be told. That cap is up from €247,500 under a previous version of the scheme.
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In a report released in March, the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) said rebuilding thousands of homes affected by mica will likely cost the Government between €149,688 and €421,470 for each house. It is understood the rates in the planned legislation are in line with that.
There will also be a second grant option, for example for those who repair the outer leaf of their home but later find issues with the inner leaf. Those homeowners will be able to reapply to the scheme.
The extension of the defective blocks scheme to two new counties comes after a report from an expert group warned that it had come to light that homes in other counties may be impacted.
The Department of Housing has been in discussions with local authorities in Clare, Sligo, Limerick and Tipperary about an extension of the scheme to those counties, with the possibility of it being widened further.
When the legislation for the enhanced scheme is published and comes before the Dáil, a new provision will allow the Minister to add other counties as new issues emerge.
Mr O’Brien is planning to write to each local authority asking them to provide information about potentially affected units in their county, in a bid to identify both the scale of the problem and also to potentially allow these homeowners access to the scheme.
The expert group said there are “widespread reports that it is present in Clare, Sligo, Limerick and Tipperary” and those local authorities are working on submissions to the Department for inclusion of their areas in the scheme.
“Engineers Ireland have signalled that their members have been testing homes in other counties the results of which are indicating that the problem may be far more widespread than feared. What is not clear is how many homes within these additional counties may ultimately be impacted.”
The report said that if the numbers were small it may not have significant financial implications on the cost projections for the scheme but there can be “no certainty in this regard.”
