‘Fundamentally flawed’: Mica group homeowners refuse to sign off report

Homeowners on the Government’s Mica working group have said they will not sign off on the final report as they said it is “fundamentally flawed” and does not reflect their views.

Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien set up the group comprising homeowner representatives and department officials to examine potential changes to the defective blocks scheme in light of significant political pressure.

The final draft report was circulated on Thursday night and did not recommend 100 per cent redress, which campaigners have been seeking.

It warned that the State could be left with a bill of up to €3.2 billion if the scheme is changed on foot of requests from homeowners.

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The report suggested that a 100 per cent grant could be made available for remediation work that does not involve full demolition.

The department estimated that about 6,600 homes could need remediation because of defective blocks containing the mineral mica. “This includes all potentially eligible privately owned homes in the counties of Donegal and Mayo and an estimate for homes in other local authority areas which may come into the scheme.”

‘Re-started from scratch’

Eileen Doherty, campaigners’ representative and member of the working group, said she emailed senior department officials on Friday afternoon to tell them her group would not be signing off on the report.

She said she sent the email after the department asked the homeowner representatives to send any “factual corrections” before a final report was sent to the Minister’s office.

“The objective of the working group was to make a number of recommendations to the Minister as to how these issues could be addressed. Nowhere in that document do I see recommendations,” Ms Doherty said.

“I don’t know how they think this document addresses the terms of reference of the working group. The officials have relegated the submission from the homeowners to a separate appendix which means it does not even form part of the actual submission itself.

“This afternoon we got an email from the department officials asking us to revert with any changes by this afternoon. The document is so fundamentally flawed that it is not even possible to given them detailed corrections. It needs to be re-started from scratch,” she said.

“We will make our own submission directly to the Minister and directly to the party leaders. We are not signing off on that document as it is not a reflection of our work.”

Speaking about the issue on Friday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the report was not the final say on the matter.

“I spoke to the Minister this morning, he was saying the report is made up of submissions made by the working groups and a record of meetings. It is not the final report that will come to us and certainly to the three party leaders and Cabinet. So we will meet with the Minister and his officials in relation to this.

“Suffice to say that significant progress has been made in terms of the original scheme. The original scheme is not fit for purpose. We have to look at this in the round now and a decision will be made in the next number of weeks.”

The report found that the average cost of the existing scheme had risen to €174,000 after nine months, then to €204,000 after 12 months and is now at €209,000.