No independent testing carried out at quarry at centre of mica crisis

The quarry that is believed to have supplied most of the defective concrete blocks in Donegal has not been subjected to an independent examination by State bodies, it has emerged.

The revelation emerged during a hearing of the joint committee on housing, local government and heritage on quarries and deleterious materials.

It also emerged during the hearing that a review of IS 465, the national standard for the assessment, testing and categorisation of buildings damaged by concrete blocks containing deleterious materials, and which has been widely criticised by experts, will not be completed until 2024.

The hearing last week was told that research being carried out before the review can be completed “is going to take time”.
Gerdaline Larkin, chief executive of the National Standards Authority of Ireland, told the hearing: “We have to be sure that when we conduct that research we are making the right recommendations to homeowners.”

The committee also heard that of around 180 quarries in Donegal, only 17 were included in an audit published last week, despite the Department of Housing stating an audit had been ordered of all the quarries in the county. The hearing heard the audit only involved “economic operators that produce construction products”.

The committee was told the quarry at the centre of the crisis was closed during the audit ordered by the Minister for Housing in October 2021, and the department “is not aware that it is currently producing material”.

Donegal TD Pádraig MacLochlain, a member of the committee, asked for assurances during the hearing from Feargal O'Coigligh, assistant secretary at the department, that there will be an urgent geological and petrographic examination of the quarry.

“I'm trying to get assurances for people that we will learn the lessons of what led to this disaster and make sure they don’t happen again,” Deputy MacLochlainn said.

Speaking after the hearing, Deputy MacLochlainn said he found it “astonishing” that there has not been “a retrospective examination of what happened at this quarry”.

He said he is not convinced that there is a “robust” oversight regime in place over quarries despite the defective concrete blocks crisis in Donegal.

“I did not leave feeling fully confident that what caused this crisis in Donegal will not be repeated in Donegal or elsewhere.”

He said that despite much progress being made in terms of regulations and oversight since the defective blocks crisis emerged in Donegal, he is “not fully satisfied” that the production of defective concrete from Irish quarries will not happen again as the system in place “still sounds too much like self-regulation to me.”

He also said it was “very clear” from the hearing that the quarry that is associated with the vast majority of defective concrete block cases “has not been independently tested” and no one could confirm that “the State has gone in and tested that quarry extensively from a geological and petrographic point of view”.

“Considering what has happened, we need to know, if for example there was an independent examination that found that their geological and petrographic testing was flawed and wrong, then that mistake could be repeated by someone else. They have not been extensively audited and their geological and petrographic assessments have not been independently checked by the State. It was not paperwork that caused this crisis.

“For me for public confidence, the State needs to have access to that quarry and do independent tests and assessments and then compare those findings to what had been submitted to get their licence.

“I have called on the department to come back and say when they are going to do that and if not, why not.”