Anger as defective concrete block campaigners take concerns to Europe

Mica campaigners have raised concerns in Europe that the redress scheme for up to 100,000 defective apartments approved by the Cabinet amounts to a breach of the human rights of homeowners affected by defective concrete blocks.

Homeowners in Donegal have been angered by the scheme approved last week which offers payments for retrospective work carried out and is uncapped. Campaigners say the €2.5 billion scheme includes elements that they were denied after months of negotiations for a revised concerted blocks redress scheme and “discriminates” against defective blocks homeowners.

Mica campaigners from Donegal, who have been in contact with European lawmakers for more than two years, have informed MEPs from different countries of the developments last week around the redress scheme for Celtic Tiger-era apartments.

Joe Morgan, who sat on the Government's defective blocks working group and has led the mica campaigners' work in Europe, said European human rights law is being breached by the Irish Government’s redress scheme for defective concrete blocks and the scheme for defective apartments highlights this further.

Contact has been made with European institutions since the announcement of the new scheme last Wednesday “to politically apply pressure on the Irish Government to amend the parameters of the {defective concrete blocks scheme} scheme in order that any family, no matter their financial circumstances, can actually get their home fixed”.

He said the differences between the defective blocks redress scheme, the Leinster pyrite scheme and now the defective apartments scheme, illustrate discrimination against some Irish citizens.

“We are working with a number of groups within the European Parliament to try and get a response,” he said.

The latest contact follows a letter from mica campaigners to Thierry Breton, the EU Commissioner for the Internal Market, after the enhanced defective blocks scheme was passed in the autumn of 2021. Mica campaigners have also presented to the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions on the issue.

“This [the defective apartments scheme] is another string to the bow,” he said. “The Government does not like to be seen in a bad light within the EU institutions, so that is embarrassing for them. What we are trying to do through political lobbying is apply pressure on them [the government] politically.”

Donegal Fianna Fáil TD and agriculture minister Charlie McConalogue has defended the redress scheme for defective apartments saying “it is as similar as it possibly can be” to the defective blocks scheme.

He said the main difference is “in relation to the retrospective aspect”.

Speaking on Highland Radio he said the new scheme applies across the country and means people in Donegal living in apartments with mica “will be able to get their apartments fixed under this scheme”.

On approving the new scheme, the Cabinet has given a commitment that retrospective work will also apply to the defective blocks scheme, he said.

“The same principles that we all fought hard to get in relation to the mica scheme, those same principals are informing the apartments scheme.”

Defective blocks campaigners have highlighted differences in the two schemes including the role of the Housing Agency in administering the apartments scheme.

Lisa Hone, chair of the Mica Action Group, said one of the biggest differences between the two schemes is that the apartments redress is an “end-to-end managed scheme” where assistance is provided by a government agency or a contracted construction company.

“That had been discussed [for the enhanced concrete blocks scheme] but it was flatly refused.

“Not only do we not have an end-to-end scheme at all, even those that are potentially in the most challenging circumstances because of other issues they have to face in their lives as well, even our most vulnerable people are getting that kind of support. They are basically told to get on with it.”

Housing minister Darragh O’Brien has insisted in recent days that the concrete blocks remediation scheme offers 100% redress.

Ann Owens, a former member of the working group on the enhanced scheme, said 50% of all applications for redress are breaching the €420,000 cap, meaning homeowners have to find tens of thousands of euro to have their homes remediated.

Even homeowners who are downsizing aren't getting 100% redress, she said.

“People are having to ask themselves can they educate their children or can they fix their house? What a situation to be in.”

She also questioned whether the hundreds of homeowners who had carried out work on their homes independent of the scheme would be able to claim payments back as they had been told that would not be possible.

"Nobody is going to get that retrospective payment because we could not see into the future to know exactly what we would have to do to get that."

Meanwhile, the 100% Redress No Less group is organising a demonstration outside Leinster House on February 8 over the delays in delivering the enhanced mica redress scheme.

The group has invited all of Donegal’s 37 county councillors to attend and is providing a bus to bring the elected representatives to the protest.

Paddy Diver of the group said: “This will be the first time it has ever happened that all the councillors in a county have stood up to the ministers and said: ‘We are down here to represent our people, not our parties.’ This is about the councillors standing up to their bosses.”

He said the approval of the redress scheme for defective apartments “felt like a kick in the stomach to us”.

“We had 180 amendments [to the enhanced defective concrete blocks scheme] not looked at. We do not have 100% redress here at all, there is no 100%.”