Donegal County Council has been warned that builders have walked off jobs remediating defective concrete homes due to payment delays.
Backlogs of up to 12 weeks have been reported by those in the DCB scheme, causing contractors to become reluctant to get involved with rebuilds at all.
The 100% Redress Party has called on Donegal County Council to review all staffing and administrative resources allocated to the Enhanced Defective Concrete Blocks Grant Scheme.
Councillor Joy Beard said that delays are upending people’s lives and that necessary steps should be taken to ensure that claims are processed and paid within the three week timeframe set by the council’s grant office.
Should further information be required, Cllr Beard said that such requests must be issued by Council staff within one week of submission.
“Many homeowners I’m in contact with who are doing everything correctly, are waiting 7, 8 weeks and longer for payment, even up to 12 weeks,” Cllr Beard told the council’s July Plenary meeting.
“Builders have walked off site because that three week payment is not happening.”
Donegal County Council has recently assigned three more staff to improve the efficiency of the DCBS payment process.
Incomplete payment claims, they said, can contribute to processing delays. To address this, a webinar is due to be announced for building professionals in the coming weeks to ensure claims are submitted correctly from the start.
Councillor Tomás Seán Devine said it is “very concerning” that contractors are becoming reluctant to get involved with rebuilds, “because we have very few as it is”.
“The issue clearly lies with internal resourcing,” said Cllr Beard. “I appreciate the additional staff coming onboard but that also needs to be closely monitored to make sure it’s continually resourced appropriately.”
Cllr Beard asked the council to publish a simple validation checklist outlining each document needed at each stage of the process to reduce the need for further information requests.
Councillor Beard asked John McLaughlin, Chief Executive of Donegal County Council, to commit to processing all claims within three weeks and to issuing all requests for further information within one week of submission. Mr McLaughlin stated he could not guarantee to these targets and stand over them without engaging with staff involved first.
“It’s a good goal to hit, but it’s very tight,” Mr McLaughlin commented.
As of 30th June, remediation works are ongoing on 547 homes in Donegal and 108 homes have been completed under the Defective Concrete Blocks Grant Scheme.
June 2025 saw €6,163,234 in payments processed for 165 applicants.
The total value of grants paid to date through both the previous and enhanced schemes now stands at over €109.8 million.
