Council monitoring homes affected by defective concrete products from Republic of Ireland

The detrimental effects of defective concrete and defective concrete products manufactured in the Republic of Ireland and sold into the Northern Ireland market are to be monitored by Derry City and Strabane District Council.

In response to a notice of motion by elected members, Council has begun quantifying the number of residents in its area whose properties contain ‘mica’.

Council has also written to the Department for Communities with regards to compensation and engagement with the Irish Government in relation to this issue.

However, a Donegal environmentalist has “warned” the people of Derry not to be “suckered” into accepting what he described as the Irish Government’s “flawed remediation scheme”.

More Derry homes will crumble

The term 'mica crisis' is a complete misnomer

The family of Enda Craig from Moville has been directly impacted by the use of defective concrete and defective concrete products in the building of their home.

Mr Craig described Irish Standard (IS) 465, the protocol underpinning the Irish Government’s redress scheme, as “completely fraudulent”.

Speaking to Derry Now, he explained: “This remediation protocol has been enshrined into current legislation by the Irish Government. It tests your defective blocks for ‘mica’ only, while ignoring the real cause, which is the reactive iron sulphide minerals and other deleterious materials.

The effect of reactive iron sulphide minerals and other deleterious materials in concrete.

“Unbelievably, the foundations of your house are also completely ignored under the ‘remediation scheme’ and the homeowner must decide whether to replace them at a significant cost to themselves or take a chance and rebuild on them, in the full knowledge they too are most likely deteriorating, having come from the same supplier and been manufactured with similar materials.

“This decision by the Irish Government makes it financially impossible for many homeowners who are currently paying a mortgage, who will find themselves facing a shortfall in the overall grant to rebuild their house and must now also find a significant amount of money to address the foundations removal and replacement.

“The Irish government, by deliberately ignoring the foundations, has ' built-in' to this redress grant scheme a cynical mechanism which is designed to limit the number of homeowners who can avail of the partial grant due to the gross financial burden being placed upon them,” said Mr Craig.

Mr Craig posed the question: “Who in their right mind would make such a ridiculous gamble as to build on foundations whose state of health is unknown but based on known research are most likely also defective?”

He added: “Many people believe this was a deliberate decision by the Irish Government and Donegal County Council to pretend to give demolition (blocks only) and then make it financially impossible for the vast majority of homeowners to rebuild their houses based on a proper engineering solution.

“Beyond all doubt it is a cynical Government exercise and self-evidently designed to protect the cost to the exchequer.

“By making it impossible for homeowners to access the grant, unless they have a significant sum of money available to cover the cost of foundation replacement and the grant shortfall for rebuilding in the first instance, is simply adding another layer of pain and distress to already suffering innocent homeowners.

“It is a shameful hoodwink of families in the northwest and makes a complete nonsense of the Govt claim that this is a 100% redress scheme. This meticulously designed Government scam - scheme needs to have its cornerstone i.e. I.S. 465 legally challenged by way of Judicial Review and have it replaced by European Concrete Standards already in existence which will guarantee foundations and Reactive Iron Sulphide Minerals will be included in the assessment of your crumbling house. Only then will you get a just and proper engineering solution,” said Mr Craig.

In 2011, in neighbouring Inishowen, when people first noticed their homes exhibiting signs of cracking and decay, the phrase ‘mica scandal’ became erroneous shorthand for the physically crumbling homes and foundations and devastated families throughout the peninsula.

Today the term ‘mica’ is no longer used by Donegal County Council, which now refers instead to ‘defective concrete’.

Accepted international research has shown it is not ‘mica’ which is destroying homes and foundations in Inishowen, rather it is the presence of deleterious reactive iron sulphide minerals in the concrete. These minerals lead to internal sulphate attack, which causes blocks and foundations to crumble.

In spite of this, the Irish Government based both its 2020 and 2022 defective concrete block remediation schemes on Irish Standard (IS) 465, which refers solely to ‘mica’.

According to Mr Craig, IS 465 was purposely designed to exclude deleterious minerals including pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite, marcasite, rare pyrite and minor pyrite, which trigger internal sulphate attack and lead to the expansion of concrete blocks and the disintegration of the cement hydrates.

Mr Craig said there were grounds for the instigation of a judicial review on the legality of IS 465.

He added: “In the public interest, the fraudulent Protocol IS 465 should be replaced by existing European regulations / legislation, which would take into account reactive iron sulphide minerals including pyrrhotite.

“This would give all affected homeowners their only proper remediation option - full demolition, including foundations, which are also currently excluded from the Government’s remediation scheme.

“Allowing the fraudulent Protocol IS 465 ‘mica only’ to be used as the yardstick for determining your remediation option is beyond belief and makes fools of the affected homeowners.

“Whoever controls the Protocol controls the scheme. Every application assessed to date has been done on the basis of a fraudulent protocol that measures mica only, when it has been scientifically proven that reactive iron sulphide minerals and other deleterious materials are the real cause of the defective blocks problem.”

Even though IS 465 is currently under review for the Irish Government, it is still being used to assess applications to the Government’s defective concrete block remediation scheme by Donegal County Council.

Enda Craig said: “A suspect protocol that is under review should never be allowed to continue to be used to determine your remediation option. What happens if it is found to be unethical and not fit for purpose?

“Will all those applications where it was wrongly used to assess be re-visited and amended? No chance.”

Derry City and Strabane District Council’s data collection exercise follows a home here being described as the first in the North with a confirmed case of ‘mica’ in November 2022.

The home belonged to Danny and Kate Rafferty, from Beragh Hill Road in the Skeoge area of the city, who carried out testing on their blocks when telltale ‘spider cracks’ appeared on the outer wall and chimney of their house.

Derry City and Strabane District Council has subsequently issued a public call out to property owners in the area, who have evidence that their residence / dwelling has been impacted by mica, as certified by an authorised mica testing organisation, to get in contact with it so it can add their details to the database.

Council stressed the purpose of this exercise was to collate data only as it could not carry out any form of ‘mica’ testing.

It said: “This data collection exercise will allow Council to quantify how many homes / properties within the Derry and Strabane District have already been tested and deemed to be affected by mica.

“Property owners are urged to get in touch by sending their name, details of the affected property and contact number, along with a copy of certified testing / documented evidence to prove your property has been impacted by mica to the following bespoke email address: mica@derrystrabane.com.

“The information will be collated and presented to a further meeting of the Council’s Environment and Regeneration Committee for elected members to review and consider going forward.”