In Mayo, fewer than a third of the homeowners who have applied for remediation under the Government’s Defective Block Grant scheme have had their works completed since it was launched just over three years ago.
Figures released by Mayo County Council show that as of this month, 507 applications have been received under the Defective Concrete Block Scheme, yet only 152 properties have been completed to date.
A further 117 properties are currently undergoing remediation works.
However, people living in homes that have been built with defective blocks in Mayo argue that the majority of those affected by this crisis cannot afford to avail of the grant, which is leaving countless families living in unsafe conditions.
Houses in the Erris peninsula, in the most northerly corner of the county, were first to show damage back in 2011, when the campaign for Government support for affected homeowners began.
The issue was raised recently during a Dáil debate on the scheme by local Sinn Féin TD Rose Conway Walsh, who has told Irish Country Living that the defective concrete blocks crisis is a “national scandal” and has said the Government scheme is not fit for purpose.
“When we set out on this 12 or 13 years ago, when pyrite was first identified in Erris, we asked for a scheme that would be affordable,” she says.
“What we have now is a scheme where the gap between the grants being offered and rebuild costs is getting wider and wider. A bigger concern is that foundations are not included in the grant, so the cost of replacing foundations rests with the homeowner and that is a considerable sum.”
Deputy Conway Walsh is also calling for full demolition of defective block properties to be the only option offered to applicants to the scheme.
“Up to now, homeowners affected by defective blocks are given the option of a total rebuild of the property, or outer relief and inner relief works. Yet the scientific evidence says anything other than demolition and rebuild doesn’t work. This makes the second option a waste of time and public money,” she explains.
“I have asked the Housing Agency to stop offering outer and inner relief works as it is just messing people around, and they’re already being put through enough torment with this.
“The ongoing stress and strain on families living in houses with defective block homes is an utter scandal. Kids are being deprived of normal childhoods and the bureaucratic nightmare facing families who are waiting over a year for test results on their homes to come back is leaving them in limbo. Families are trying to heat homes where walls are cracked.”
Health grounds
A Ballina family made the decision to apply for the scheme based on health grounds. Gemma McLaughlin still doesn’t know the full extent of how the experience has affected her two children, who were 10 and seven when the family first discovered they were impacted by defective blocks.
“The first I knew of it was when a friend of mine was looking at buying a house in our estate. She pulled out of the sale because her engineer discovered pyrite in the blocks,” she explains.
“We had two different engineers sign off on the house when we bought it in 2011 so I had no reason to suspect anything. But I started to look into whether or not our house was affected. I had raised concerns over cracks under the windows and at the top of the stairs when we were buying the house, which I was told at the time were settling cracks.
“In 2021, a local engineer came to examine the house and advised us to knock it as the cracks were getting bigger and we had rubble coming into the house on the stairs. A year later the cracks had travelled so we decided we had no option but to apply for the scheme.
“My son and my husband both have asthma and there was black mould on the walls and black dust in the house literally coming from the walls so we made the decision as a family that our safety was paramount.”
Gemma’s home is a semi-detached house in an estate of approximately 60 properties that were built in 1999. Despite her next-door neighbour, whose house is attached, wanting to proceed with a rebuild at the same time as Gemma’s property was being demolished, that family is still waiting to be approved for the grant as the applications from both houses were not submitted at the same time.
Gemma and her family are now back living in their rebuilt home but say the scars of their experience are still raw.
“The only house we could find to rent was actually around the corner from us here in the same estate but it was torture driving past our house every day, especially after it was demolished,” she says.
“We were out for 12 months but moved back in before we had our kitchen installed. The plumbing wasn’t finished and the garden was full of rubble. The financial pressure of paying rent and making mortgage repayments, along with finding the money for the rebuild, was just too much.
"We also had two sets of bills to pay once the heating was turned back on in our own house so it was very, very hard. We weren’t living for that year; we were literally just surviving. We used an air fryer to cook food and we washed the dishes in the bath for weeks.
“Five houses in our estate were initially accepted onto the scheme but more and more have been added so we’ll be living on a building site for the next 10 years. Financially we are still waiting to receive retrospective payments from the grant scheme. It means we don’t have the money to spend on the kids, who play rugby and Irish dancing and it means we can’t change the car. We’re in limbo.
“I also don’t know if bricks and mortar hold feelings, but this doesn’t feel like our home after all we’ve gone through. The house is a little smaller than our original home to allow for structural issues between the two properties so while you’re only talking millimetres, it is very obvious when you go to open your en-suite door and it bangs against the bed.
“I won’t know what impact this has all had on my children until they’re older. Friends who are going through the same nightmare say the same thing. The toll on our mental health has been massive and there were times during the rebuild that I just wanted to hand the keys back to the bank. We had hoped to move to a detached house in the countryside as the kids got older but that dream is gone now.
“Families are being forced to figure this out on a wing and a prayer. We aren’t quantity surveyors; we aren’t builders. We’re trying to raise children, run households and hold down jobs.”
Rose Conway Walsh has called on the Government to ensure no homeowner is left in debt from having their home demolished and rebuilt under the scheme and has said the current scheme needs to be modified.
“This scheme is not fit for purpose. Getting the work done is unaffordable for too many people as the gap between the grant and the rebuilding costs is too big. Defective concrete blocks constitute one of the greatest scandals ever. We need a public inquiry to run in parallel with getting the homes rebuilt.”
SHARING OPTIONS