Mica conference hears hopes of clearing 400 stalled redress applications

There is hope that a backlog of up to 400 on-hold applications for redress under the defective blocks scheme could be cleared by early next year.

An international conference on mica and defective blocks held in Donegal has heard that there will be determined efforts to clear the backlog of applications that have been on hold since last December.

The three-day conference, the Science and Societal Impacts of Defective Concrete, which began in Letterkenny on Tuesday, heard that Donegal County Council will over the next few weeks be processing outstanding applications “as quickly as possible” with the help of extra staff following a breakthrough with the Department of Housing on clarification sought by the council on homes affected by deleterious materials other than mica and pyrite.

Cllr Martin McDermott, chair of the council’s defective concrete blocks steering committee, told the conference that following meetings between the department and the council, “the main aim here is that between now and early January we can clear that 400 applications and another 180 on top of that, that have come in in the last six or seven months.

“It is a very important step that finally the department has recognised that there are other things in play here in this county other than mica.”

In a further boost to homeowners,  John O’Connor, the Minister of Housing’s nominee as homeowner liaison with representatives on the defective concrete blocks scheme and chair of the Housing Commission, said he understands the Department of Housing will have the regulations on the revised defective blocks redress scheme completed before the end of the year.

The conference, hosted by Atlantic Technological University in Letterkenny and Ulster University, has brought together leading international experts in geology, earth sciences and engineering who research the impacts of deleterious minerals on concrete from Canada, the USA, Switzerland and Norway to speak about their own research as well as to learn more about the defective blocks issue in Ireland. 

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The event in the Clanree Hotel heard how homeowners and engineers have been frustrated by the delays in the scheme and how there is a need for more streamlined processes for all involved.

Cllr McDermott said the scheme to date has been plagued by red tape and has been very difficult for both homeowners and engineers.

He said it is "very clear" that IS 465, the protocol for determining whether a building has been damaged by concrete blocks containing deleterious materials, and which is being reviewed, “is not fit for purposes and is extremely outdated”. 

“It is something that needs to be updated urgently,” he said.

“This process needs to be a lot more streamlined than it is to date because up to date it has been extremely difficult from stage 1 through to stage 2.”

Damien Owens, director general of  Engineers Ireland, said lessons should be learned from the experience of operating the redress scheme in Donegal because it has “lacked levels of certainty for engineers and homeowners” and there has been a lack of speed in dealing with applications.

“If this now becomes a nationwide issue… we need to learn and make the whole process more efficient and more inclusive of other mechanisms of deterioration,” although that could be “uncomfortable in terms of additional costs for the taxpayer”.

Angeline Ruddy, an affected homeowner and teacher at Moville Community College, outlined the impact of the crisis on her school where a quarter of staff and about 150 students live in mica-affected homes.

She said it “absolutely frightened” her what she saw as she went from home to home in her role as a community liaison coordinator for the school when she found "families in absolute turmoil…living in houses that were crumbling around them". 

“This scheme involves so much money upfront for everyone that it is an impossibility and it is actually quite a white elephant for most ordinary families.”

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She said families in Donegal “need a leg up, not another form of inequality slammed upon them, as our students come to school every day from mica homes. Can you imagine the stress that they are under? 

“We need to break the cycle and we need support from the Government. We need support in our schools because we are not coping with what is being thrown at us and we do not have the skills to deal with what the young people are going through.”

Lisa Hone, chair of the Mica Action Group, said there has been “an utter failure of government”. 

She said the conference was taking place because the Government has failed “to do its research, has failed to do its due diligence”.

“They are also failing the homeowners by not putting any provision for alternative accommodation in place. They know what is coming. There is a tsunami coming down the road. We have whole communities affected, we have whole estates affected, they know what is coming, and yet we still have this ostrich in the sand attitude from the Government.”