The Mica Action Group (MAG) has renewed its call for the Minister for Housing, Darragh O’Brien, to meet with DCB affected homeowners in a public forum.
In an open letter, they pointed out that it has been over a year since they requested a public meeting with the minister.
Now, MAG adds, is the time for Minister O’Brien to meet with homeowners in Donegal to address their many concerns. The group anticipates he will visit the county in the near future.
Read the letter in full, below:
Dear Minister O’Brien,
On 26th July 2023, MAG formally requested that you attend a public meeting in Donegal with homeowners impacted by the defective concrete crisis.
In response, on the 8th September, Ms Niamh Redmond, Private Secretary, replied that; ‘the Minister hopes to visit Donegal again in the near future and will take the opportunity to meet directly with homeowners and officials engaged with the scheme.’ Given that in excess of a year has passed since the receipt of this correspondence from your office; MAG suggests that it is timely that you meet in a public forum with homeowners in Co. Donegal.
The importance of your attendance at such a meeting is paramount. Homeowners deserve the respect of having their views and lived experience heard at first hand. Homeowners have been continuously held at arm’s length through the provision by your Department of a Homeowner Liaison Mr John O’ Connor. In fact, homeowners are the only stakeholders that are prevented from contributing directly to the reviews of the Defective Concrete Scheme and to a variety of other meetings including that held recently involving the newly established Appeals Panel.
The concerns in relation to the scheme are well documented as are your responses to these concerns. It is not MAG’s intention to repeat all of the issues with the scheme herein. We have previously documented the significant barriers to the scheme in correspondence with yourself and your colleagues.
Officials point to the increase in the cap as a success of the scheme. The reality is that the cap is irrelevant to people if they are unable to access the scheme in the first instance. A huge number of homeowners are also having the recommendations of their original chartered engineers downgraded and being assigned a cheaper, unscientific recommendation option than the full demolition required. The use of the cap as evidence of success of the scheme is disingenuous in light of the numbers of people who are unable to access the scheme in the first instant due to a myriad of reasons, not least of which is your government’s failure to make practicable its policy solution to provide for upfront costs.
Minister, you hold the number of applications to the scheme (1,970 as of 11/04/24, PQ) as a criteria of success. The latter is an extremely blunt instrument. Applications of homes to the scheme are very different to completion of homes, of which, over the duration of two Defective Concrete Schemes; we have 43 completed in this county and 16 in Mayo. Taking the presumably hugely underestimated official number of 7,500 houses, the number of homes completed to date represents 0.57% of the total.
In the Dáil on 11/04/2024, when Deputy Ó Broin asked you for your views on the growing concerns of homeowners relative to the scheme, you stressed that you were ‘committed to working through the concerns’. If you were truthful and genuine in that response, you will make yourself available to meet in a public forum with affected homeowners.
MAG believes that if you are planning to visit in the near future, you already have the date scheduled in your diary. We ask that you demonstrate respect to homeowners by providing due notice of your visit to the county so that arrangements to meet you can be made.
We ask that you do not cause additional hurt to already traumatised homeowners by visiting the county unannounced and meeting with officials and other small groups behind closed doors. Given your political status, MAG are sure you are in agreement that transparency and accountability are of paramount importance.
MAG anticipate your timely response, in order that the appropriate arrangements can be made.
Yours sincerely,
The MAG Committee.
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