Mica Action Group to carry out risk assessments on affected homes

The Mica Action Group is to begin carrying out its own professional health and safety risk assessments on homes affected by defective blocks due to what it calls the State’s failure to respond quickly to homeowners in Donegal “left in dire need”.

The group has told Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien that defective concrete homeowners in Donegal have been “utterly abandoned and ignored”  by his department and Donegal County Council.  

In a letter to the minister, the group’s chair Lisa Hone said homeowners affected by defective blocks are being exposed to “physical and psychological hazards” and the situation has been “unnecessarily prolonged due to the intransigent, unempathetic and lackadaisical way” in which the revised defective blocks scheme is being handled by the Government and local authority.

Only 14 mica-affected houses have been rebuilt since the original scheme was launched more than two years ago and Ms Hone said a stalemate between the Department of Housing and the council over the inadequacy of the protocol which determines whether a building has been damaged by concrete blocks to address the issue of deleterious materials such as pyrrhotite “is exacerbating an already shambolic situation”. 

In the letter, which was copied to all members of Cabinet and the chief executive of Donegal County Council John McLaughlin, Ms Hone said homeowners are trapped in unsafe, unhealthy homes with no alternative, no support and no prospect of escape. 

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The health and safety risk assessments will be sent to all relevant authorities and organisations, she said. 

“The State has demonstrated many times in recent years that it can respond quickly to extraordinary circumstances,” Ms Hone said. “It is knowing this, but not seeing a concerted response to those in dire need due to defective homes, leads affected homeowners to conclude that they are of no importance to the State.”  

Donegal Sinn Féin TD Pádraig MacLochlainn has called for an emergency response from the government to what he described as a “humanitarian crisis,” adding that a growing number of families in Donegal are being forced to live in dangerous homes because they can’t find or afford temporary alternative accommodation.

He said he had received a response from the housing minister stating that he had “not agreed to task the Housing Agency and Donegal County Council and to resource them to assist our Donegal families”. 

“This is just unacceptable. I will not allow him to walk away from responsibility and I will be following this up in the Dáil this week again”.

Inishowen Sinn Féin councillor Albert Doherty said that despite numerous exchanges between the council and the Department of Housing over the stalemate, no progress has been made.

“Clarity from the Department of Housing and Darragh O'Brien for affected families is of critical importance,” he said.

“The defective blocks blight weighs heavily on too many families and communities and an urgent Government and department response to the impasse is required,” he said.