Donegal County Council has been urged to demand the immediate replacement of the IS 465 standard before it is too late for homeowners who are having their remediation recommendations downgraded.
The calls have been fueled by a series of remediation recommendations of engineers employed by defective block homeowners being downgraded by independent engineers engaged by the Housing Agency.
The IS 465 protocol, set back in 2017, is under review by the National Standards Authority while scientists and public representatives highlight their case that mica is not the primary cause of defective concrete blocks found in around 6,000 homes in Donegal.
Cllrs Frank McBrearty Jnr and Cllr Martin McDermott both raised serious issues with the IS 465 protocol during yesterday’s meeting of Donegal County Council.
Remediation options available within IS 465 are well out of date, Cllr Martin McDermott told the council yesterday.
“There are lots of situations out there, particularly with remediation options coming from the Housing Agency to homes, that are very questionable,” Cllr McDermott said. “Particularly homes that have bison slabs and when you look at Option 3 of the remediation options which just goes down to the top of the rising wall, which leaves the rising wall down to foundation level. Some of these houses that are getting these remediation options, the blocks that are being used for the rising wall are from the same supplier as the blocks that the house was built with.
“I can’t for the life of me understand that remediation options are being given to homeowners today leaving blocks from the same supplier, that we have thousands of houses deteriorating every day with, in situ.”
Cllr McDermott said it “just beggars belief” that such options are coming from the Housing Agency. He urged the council to write to the Minister for Housing and the National Standards Authority seeking an immediate update on the progress of the review and the implementation of an updated standard.
Cllr McDermott added “Some of the remediation options just don’t make sense, Where families are getting €380,000 – 395,000 to replace the leaves and leave blocks behind. We (Donegal County Council) are the ones administering the scheme and the time has come to put serious pressure on the National Standards Authority to get the standard published and delivered.”
In a separate motion, Cllr Frank McBrearty urged the newly-elected council to make a demand for the Housing Agency to be ordered to desist and reverse their overturning of I.S. 465 Chartered Engineers recommendations. Cllr McBrearty also called for the Housing Agency to accept findings that Mica and Freeze Thaw is not the cause of the Donegal defective concrete scandal.
Cllr McBrearty’s motion urged Donegal County Council to contact the Minister for Housing, Local Government & Heritage Darragh O’Brien TD, Secretary General of the Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage Mr Graham Doyle, the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee TD and Secretary General of the Department of Justice Ms Oonagh McPhilip “before it is too late” for affected homeowners who have had their engineers’ recommendations downgraded to date.
Cllr McBrearty told councillors that “affected homeowners having their recommendations downgraded illegally should be supported by the people who promised them, when they ran for election on June 7th, that they will stand by them.”
“The Department must act now, and the evidence today shows that Local Authorities all over Ireland are testing all new developments under the block’s standard I.S. EN 771-3 and not the Mica Standard I.S. 465,” he said, calling on Donegal County Council to make public that the mica theory is “wrong”.
“The overwhelming evidence is that the active iron sulphide mineral, classed as total sulphide which includes the presence of pyrrhotite, is the cause of the structural defects in properties in Donegal today,” Cllr McBrearty said.
