“Some won’t even be able to sit and have their Christmas dinner"

Some families living in homes that have been blighted by defective blocks will be unable to sit and have Christmas dinner at their kitchen table.

With another winter having crept up, thousands of affected homeowners are in fear over crumbling walls.

On Monday, a large protest has been planned with a demonstration to take place in Lifford ahead of Donegal County Council’s last plenary meeting of 2022.

Despite apparent progress on up to 400 stalled stage 1 applications to the scheme and hope that the regulations for the new scheme will be published before Christmas, anger is mounting over the conditions that some homeowners are living in.

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“Some of them won’t even be able to sit and have their Christmas dinner,” says Lisa Hone, the Chair of the Mica Action Group.

“You have people who can’t switch their cookers on with the water coming in on top of their electrics. This is so fundamentally wrong. It is really basic stuff.

“There are families in Donegal who have had to sellotape up gaps in their walls. It is literally raining in some houses.

“It’s just a reminder of how winter is a particularly hard time for affected families and some are actually living in frightening conditions.”

Campaigners will ask that standing orders be suspended on Monday’s and will seek a forum to address the meeting of Donegal County Council, which is due to begin at 11am in the County House. It is the last scheduled full Council meeting of 2022.

Representatives from the Mica Action Group and the 100 Per Cent Redress No Less groups - who are organising Monday’s protest - will hand a written submission to the local authority.

Ms Hone said: “We will deliver a list of key areas that need immediate action.

“We need to focus on getting people out of homes that aren’t safe and health. We simply need a plan to get people out of those homes.

“Here is a demand with regard to temporary, modular housing. There will be several thousand homeowners who will come through the scheme and yet there is only a handful of available properties in Donegal at any one time.

“We need to have something in place; if we don’t have temporary accommodation, people will be stuck. We also need the application process to be more efficient and swift.

“At this stage we need tangible actions that will have positive outcomes for homeowners.”

Affected homeowners are asked to gather at the County House in Lifford from 10am to join in the protest.

Ms Hone said: “Don’t leave it to chance - just make sure you’re there. Don’t just think that everyone is going and it’s grand. If everyone turns up we will have a tremendous crowd.

“It is important that we make our presence felt and our voices heard. This is the last chance for this to happen at a Council meeting until 2023.”

Campaigners are calling for a €15,000 accommodation grant for accommodation costs in the revised scheme to be made available immediately.

Ms Hone said: “The new scheme has taken way longer than we envisaged. It is almost the one-year anniversary since Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien promised to fast track legislation.

“We can’t see light at the end of the tunnel. The Curren scheme has stymied and we don’t know when it will actually be in place. We need to feel that things are moving forward and we need to see some light.”