Minister for Housing urged to 'sit in a room' with homeowners as hundreds attend Defective Blocks Scheme Information Evening

It was standing room only in An Grianan Hotel in Burt for the event, at which the Minister for Housing, officials and organisations responsible for the implementation of the scheme were urged to come to Donegal, ‘sit in the room’ and meet with impacted homeowners.

MAG chairperson Lisa Hone told Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue, who was in attendance, that he ‘can’t have escaped the strength of emotion and concern’ in the room.

She added: “If Darragh (O’Brien, Minister for Housing) is genuine and cares about homeowners, like he says he does, we want him in Donegal, in this room and to explain how this scheme is going to work, as we just cannot see how it’s going to work.”

At the information evening, MAG outlined essential elements of the scheme to homeowners, such as the application process, grant caps, the damage threshold and the role of Donegal County Council and the Housing Agency.

They said that while there are some ‘positive moves’ from the original scheme, they ‘do not endorse the revised scheme as it stands’.

MAG added how they have ‘serious concerns’ in areas such as foundations, science, finance, insurance, lack of alternative accommodation and the ‘lack of support’ for those in vulnerable and complex situations.

Much of the dialogue on the evening surrounded homeowner’s concerns over building on existing foundations. Other issues highlighted included insurance companies not covering mica homes, banks not engaging with homeowners and how the scheme does not align with the science relating to the causes of defective blocks.

There were also issues raised relating to engineers, who recently highlighted difficulties in obtaining Professional Indemnity Insurance. An engineer is required to ‘sign off’ on remediation options 2-5.

However, Ms Hone said there is an ‘inherent issue’ with this.

“Effectively, the CEO of Engineers’ Ireland spoke about how engineers are finding it very difficult to get PI insurance. If you need an engineer and if you have option 2 – 5 and need an engineer to sign it off – and if you can’t get that engineer as they can’t get PI insurance, what do you do? Where is the credibility in the scheme if engineers can’t sign off on the thing the government said they need to sign off on?”

Minister McConalogue told homeowners that he listened to what they said at the meeting and added that he knew ‘it has been a torturous process for everyone to get this stage – it has taken far too long’.

He added that he accepted the scheme was ‘not perfect’ and that ‘we’ve got to make sure we push it on and get as many houses fixed as possible’.

Minister McConalogue said he would pass on to the Minister the request to meet with homeowners.

Homeowners and everyone affected by defective blocks were also asked to sign the formal complaint to the European Commission against the Irish State.

It can be accessed here.