Inishowen children as young as nine receiving counselling due to mica

Children in Inishowen as young as nine affected by the defective blocks crisis have been undergoing counselling.

Around 700 people have availed of counselling and support for people living in homes with defective concrete blocks that has been offered in recent months as part of an initiative to provide mental health and practical support in the community.

The supports are being offered by Inishowen Development Partnership (IDP) under the Inishowen Family Action Network which involves 26 agencies and organisations including Tusla, the Housing Executive, and Lifeline Inishowen.

The help includes creative therapies using art and music, coffee mornings for homeowners and counselling which is open to adults and children from the age of seven.

There have also been workshops for the childcare sector about working with children suffering from trauma.

The project began with a survey which was carried out in July 2021 to identify what the needs were.

IDP held an information evening in Buncrana last week about the support available for homeowners which was attended by people from around Donegal.

Denise McCool of IDP said the initiative has developed over the last 18 months after it became apparent that there was a gap in support being provided on the ground for the 5,000 or more homeowners in the county affected by defective blocks and their families as they were finding what they were dealing with “all-consuming”.

It became apparent that children from families dealing with defective blocks needed mental health support, she said.

“Schools were seeing it in children’s drawings - cracks being drawn into things. Kids were saying they wanted to protect their parents and were making decisions not to go to college because their parents needed the money to rebuild their house.”

She said the supports are necessary because finding the solutions to repair or rebuild affected homes has been “a long slow process for people”.

“People are finding it really hard going and it is about recognising that this is a form of trauma.

“What we were seeing was that some people were also feeling guilty and were saying there were people who needed help more than them.”

Apart from the housing crisis, there is also a crisis of general health and well-being, she said.

“This support is here because this community of people need it. It is not a luxury item.”

Dr Eileen Doherty, a mica homeowner and one of the organisers of the recent international conference on the impact of defective blocks, who addressed the information evening, said there is a demand for “empirical data” on the whole issue of defective blocks.

“As well as the campaigns, it's important that we have a strand that when we get to have conversations with senior officials and people in Government, that we can base what we are saying on fact.

“Whether it is to do with science or the trauma that is caused by this to families or whether it is the terrible situations that businesses are finding themselves in - we need to have evidence and the only way that we will have evidence is to undertake rigorous research.”