More than a third of all engineer’s recommendations for remediating homes in the defective concrete block scheme have been downgraded, it has been revealed.
The revelation came to light at today’s Defective Concrete Blocks Scheme Committee meeting, following a question from Cllr. Declan Meehan.
A Housing Agency representative on the committee outlined that, of 315 remediation options granted, 123 were changed from the original recommendations made by homeowners’ engineers.
Of those, 111 were lowered from Option 1 (full demolition) to Options 2-4 or a combination of these. This represents 35% of all applications to the scheme, now administered by the Housing Agency.
“We have known anecdotally that this is a huge problem and one which is causing a lot of distress to homeowners attempting to access the scheme” Cllr. Meehan said.
“The report from the Housing Agency today shows the scale of this problem with one-third of all applications being downgraded.
“In light of these statistics and the leaked Attorney General’s advice previously, the question begs to be asked if this is a systemic attempt to frustrate true and full redress even within the constraints of the so-called enhanced scheme?
“Families and individuals affected by these downgrades are left in an impossible situation, especially given that the appeals process does not permit any new evidence for consideration.
“As a result of this homeowners only have the difficult choice of either proceeding with the downgraded remediation option or holding out for something better under a potentially new or improved scheme.
“This yet again highlights how flawed this redress scheme is, and how it – and this government – are failing homeowners.”
