Couple forced to leave unsafe home say they are 'living in limbo'

Donna and Ian McDade’s home in Newtowncunningham was built with mica/defected blocks and last year, they were told it needs to be demolished.

Despite this, they continue to wait for the enhanced defective blocks scheme to go live and are currently paying both a mortgage and rent as they wait.

Donna and Ian moved into their home in February 2007. Surrounded by green fields and gorgeous views, they ‘loved’ living there.

In 2012, they noticed cracks appear on the outside walls, which they were told were ‘settling cracks’. The couple, who had moved back from England to live back in Ireland -Donna is originally from Burt – repaired the cracks three years in a row. They were then told it could be an issue with the plaster, so paid to re-plaster the house in 2016. In 2017, they repainted the house with lighthouse paint. By 2018, the cracks were back ‘and now they were worse’.

Donna and Ian soon realised their dream home had been built with defective blocks. The home Donna had loved was crumbling before her eyes and she now ‘hates it’.

Water pours in through the windows when it’s raining. Mice get in through the cracks and the house is impossible to heat. The upstairs floors are buckling, large cracks cover the entire outside walls, where the corners are jutting out and falling away.

There is mould in the bathroom and during a recent storm, the ‘whole house shook’. Donna recalled one incident where she was home alone and couldn’t get the back door to shut at night.

It was a combination of all these factors and what they describe as ‘some luck’ in that a family member offered them alternative accommodation in Letterkenny, that led to their decision to move out. Before this, they had bought a caravan to live in.

While they are now out of the house, they are still paying a sizeable mortgage, as well as rent on the house in Letterkenny and storage costs for furniture etc that was removed from the Newtowncunningham house. While they were approved for demolition in August last year, they are still waiting to move to stage two of the current scheme.

“We thought the whole house would have been demolished by now,” said Donna.

"I don’t know what the hold up is. It’s torturous. We are just in a state of limbo.”

Donna has sought support from her bank but has been told they can’t help. The interest rate on the mortgage has increased three times since August. Donna has contacted numerous bodies, including the Central Bank of Ireland and European Central Bank to seek help for people living in homes impacted by defective blocks who are paying mortgages and is awaiting their response.

“Even if we the new scheme is rolled out soon, we are going to be, at the very least, 60,000 euro short and have to pay a mortgage on top of that. Something needs to happen soon. Is it going to take a major disaster, like someone getting hurt, before something is done?”