Mum reveals how she had to take house off market over concrete blocks scandal
Picture: And In West Near Co Ghosh At Blocked Arindam From Newspix Home Moving: The Jacqueline Stranorlar Donegal North
Jacqueline Ghosh wanted to return home to her native Inishowen.
She was living in Stranorlar, Co Donegal, with her husband Arindam, who is from India, and their two children when in 2021 they decided the rural environment would be a better location to raise a family.
They put their house on the market and agreed the purchase of a new home in the northern peninsula. Everything looked to be going according to plan when problems arose over defective blocks.
By September, Jacqueline and her daughter relocated to Inishowen to rent so her daughter could attend her new school at the beginning of the school year. Then she got a call from her husband in Stranorlar.
“My whole world fell apart that day,” she says. “We had to take the house off the market, take my daughter back to Letterkenny to go to school and face into a future where we didn’t know how badly damaged was the home we were trying to sell.”
The couple bought their home in 2006.
Their plight is replicated in thousands of homes along the western seaboard. The defective concrete block scandal led to a major campaign by affected homeowners, including a huge protest in Dublin during the pandemic.
An initial scheme run by Donegal and Mayo county councils was set up in 2020 but this was deemed to be inadequate to meet the needs of those who were affected.
The following year, after huge political pressure was applied, the Government announced the Enhanced Defective Concrete Blocks Scheme (EDCBS).
The new scheme was estimated to cost €2.2bn in order to make good the damage done to at least 7,500 affected homes along the western seaboard.
There have been issues around the EDCBS, not least that it does not cater for 100% redress.
This has been ongoing over the last two years, culminating in victory in the recent local elections for four candidates standing for the 100% Redress party.
Now, however, another issue is coming to light.
One in four homeowners who were told by engineers in an assessment for the original local authority-run scheme that their homes needed to be demolished, are now being told that under the new scheme this is not the case.
Instead, they are due to receive remediation work short of full demolition. This gives rise to the question as to why these assessments differ and quite obviously leaves the affected homeowners wondering whether problems are being stored up for the future.
The Ghoshs applied to Donegal County Council for the original redress scheme. That scheme obliged applicants to pay for the engineer and the samples required to be tested and then be reimbursed with most of the outlay. Their engineer, who was on a list of recommended professionals supplied by the local authority, conducted his survey in 2021 and sent off the samples for testing.
There are five options from which engineers must make recommendations. Option 1 is full demolition right through to Option 5, which is to demolish and rebuild only the outer leaf walls that are damaged.
The engineer recommended the minimum remediation required was Option 2, which is to demolish and rebuild full external walls, but he went on to state the “most appropriate” remediation was Option 1.
The council requested further information and on a second visit the engineer noted 19 further cracks had appeared since his initial examination.
By then, the new EDCBS was up and running and the council handed the case over to the Housing Agency.
In March of this year, another engineer, retained by the Housing Agency, did “an assessment” of the initial engineer’s report. This assessment did not include any site visit to the house or the testing of any new samples from the concrete blocks. The engineer was acting totally professionally and within the brief designed by the Housing Agency and the legislation passed to set up the EDCBS.
Its conclusion was that contrary to the initial recommendation, the minimum remediation now should be option four, but “due to the localised severe damage internally an Option 3 is considered the most appropriate remediation”. This would involve demolishing and rebuilding the external walls.
By its nature, the new recommendation does not take account of any deterioration in the concrete blocks during the three years since the original assessment.
In a statement issued to the the Housing Agency confirmed “approximately three in four appropriate remediation option determinations for Option 1 issued to date by the Housing Agency are consistent with the previous recommendation from a consulting engineer".
The agency noted “the technical and geotechnical information contained in the application's chartered engineers report is fully considered by the Housing Agency chartered engineers”.
It is unclear how many homeowners have had the original recommendation to demolish downgraded by the Housing Agency. Since November 2023, the agency has issued “a total of 268 appropriate remediation options, complete with grant amount determinations totalling approximately €89 million”.
The is aware of an informal WhatsApp group of more than 30 homeowners whose original recommendation was to demolish, but the full figure could be much higher.
Mary Kelly and her family found themselves in the same situation as the Ghoshs. The engineer they retained recommended demolition of their home outside Letterkenny in 2022. Their case was passed onto the new scheme and in January this year they were told they were now being recommended for Option 2, which is full demolition of the external walls.
Ironically, the downgrade, suggesting their home is not as damaged as initially assessed, will also lead to greater costs. This is due to the anomaly that full demolition takes account of floor area of a home, while demolishing the walls is calculated on the basis of the wall area.
Mary Kelly says apart from anything else, finding a contractor to do this kind of work is a lot more difficult than one who will do a full rebuild.
She is highly critical of how the Housing Agency has arrived at its new recommendation.
“They haven’t done their job because they haven’t even looked at our house,” she says. “They contradict the chartered engineer [who made the initial assessment] who was to the house several times. I would think that if they are going to contradict him the least they could do is come out and see the damage for themselves.”
Kathrina Kirk and her family, who also live in Letterkenny, have had a near-identical experience. One different detail in their case was that an engineer from the Housing Agency did initially come out to view their home.
“That was in July last year,” Kathrina says.
The Kirks had their application downgraded from Option 1 to a blend between Options 2 and 4, which involves taking down some walls and leaving others.
The issue of whether there are possible solutions to the various rogue elements in the blockwork — it has been discovered in recent years that there is much more than mica here — has been dogging this scheme, its predecessors and many engineers who have examined the damage.
Ambrose McCloskey, of MA McCloskey Engineers in Dungiven Co Derry, was one of the original professionals to assess the damage. Three years ago, he issued an open letter highlighting what he saw as the application of temporary solutions to a problem his experience told him would be intractable without going back to square one.
In July 2021, he wrote: “In simple terms, any course of remedial work short of a complete demolition will mean that potentially degrading blockwork with remain, and will be subject to moisture and potentially oxygen, within the structure. We do not know how this will continue to perform. As such, there is, in my opinion, still a likelihood of further structural deterioration in the medium/longer term.
Today, Ambrose McCloskey says his opinion then still holds largely true.
“I believe I’ve been proved right,” he says. “I was told I was wrong but it turns out now when they have done their research I actually was pretty much on the mark. It was convenient at the time to blame mica but there was much more going on. The standard that was used at the time had no scientific basis.”
He believes the current scheme and how applicants are being downgraded is not the way to go. “As far as I know, there has not been any proper cost-benefit analysis,” he says.
“Money is being spent fixing these houses, often costing up to two-thirds what it would to demolish. And in five or 10 years time, they may well have to come back and demolish when and if there is further deterioration.”
The recent local elections saw four candidates for the 100% Redress party, a one-issue entity seeking full redress from the EDCBS, elected to Donegal County Council. Last week, the four councillors had a zoom call with the Housing Agency to discuss the scheme and problems that are arising.
Cllr Thomas Devine told the his understanding following the meeting was that 70 applicants had been downgraded, mostly from Option 1.
“They don’t want to call it downgrading,” Mr Devine said. “They were telling us that they were on our side and they want to do all that they can, but they have to go by what the legislation set out."
He says the narrative coming from the agency is at variance with that coming from affected homeowners. The officials from the Housing Agency also pointed out that seven applicants had their option effectively upgraded following the assessment by the agency.
“I got the impression we were hearing a pre-rehearsed speech even though they say they are trying to do the best for everybody. The whole thing, in my opinion, is just designed to save money. What needs to be done in the vast majority of cases is the house should come down and be rebuilt instead of having constant obstacles in front of people.”
The recommendations made by the Housing Agency are subject to appeal under the legislation. Dozens of homeowners have already initiated appeals but there is no time limit on how long an appeal can take. A spokesperson for the agency said the appeals panel had been established and had met twice so far. It is unclear whether or not any appeals panel will visit a site to view the damage on which their determination will be made.
In the Ghoshs' appeal, Jacqueline set out how the whole case has impacted on the lives of her and her family. She says “the biggest punch” was the new recommendation which, she claims, did not take into account the additional information about new cracks reported on by her engineer.
“For us, it is simply shocking,” she writes in her appeal. “It is like one doctor who has done a full and thorough examination saying you need surgery to remove cancer and then another one looking at a part of the report and saying we will do the minimal treatment as a temporary solution and see how it goes. You can always come back if you need more.
"I ask the panel — would this be acceptable for you? Would you be happy to go with the temporary solution? Would this not be a cause of constant worry for you?”
For John and Kathrina Kirk, putting together an appeal is, they believe, a considerable body of work. “We’re sending the kids away next week to stay with relatives,” she says.
“We need the space to concentrate on putting together a proper appeal. There is a lot of work involved in the whole thing and we never thought we would have ended up in a situation like this.”