The culpability of the quarry, the CC, the builders, etc, is all moot. This risk wasn't insured against and there is no private pot of gold here to remediate it.
The issue is that you have:
- Houses that are becoming increasingly uninhabitable
- Occupiers that have a housing need
What should the state do?
The state has taken the bizarre decision that the only way to deal with (2) is to knock and fully rebuild (1), and the even more bizarre decision to fully fund it.
There are some hard cases of people with their houses falling down around their ears on modest incomes and with big mortgages. I have huge sympathy and I think the state should support these people. But that this one end of the spectrum. There are also cash-only landlords of holiday homes here who are going to be made whole here and this is a really disgusting use of public funds.
The other issue is that redress could easily have been in the form of an interest-only loan at a fixed, low rate for life. Why on earth they will get to own their new homes outright is beyond me.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of young people in Ireland right now who would like to build or buy a 1000sqft house (never mind a 2400sqft one which is the average in Donegal!) but either don't have the funds or can't borrow enough. And yet the state can find €3bn, a large portion of which will be used to build new houses for people many of whom can afford to fund it fully or in part themselves! And don't get me started on the fact that it will reinforce existing patterns of car-dependent, one-off housing.
Pretty much 80% of online commentary is opposed to the redress scheme. The other 20% is "sue the quarry" or whatever which is unrealistic. If I'm not wrong there hasn't been a single TD or senator who has come out in public against this. Astonishing.
A very small number of people have managed to milk the taxpayer for billions here in spite of public opposition or indifference. €3billion would build a small metro in Dublin and would be used by hundreds of thousands of people daily. It's the kind of policy error that I haven't seen since the financial crisis back in 2008/9. What's worse is that there was no urgency here either.