'A defective scheme for defective blocks': Victims can't sleep at night
Dermot Farrell with his wife Bríd and children Ben, Conor and Hannah at their Raphoe home. Picture: NW Newspix
“Donegal is falling,” said Dermot Farrell, whose dream home in Raphoe is cracking, along with thousands of other buildings across the county due to mica-contaminated blocks.
“It’s a nightmare. Homes are crumbling around families. Children are going to bed at night unable to sleep from the worry that their home will fall down around them.
“It’s constantly there in the back of people’s minds.
“Mica is the new Covid here, people in Donegal don’t even talk about Covid anymore,” he said.
Originally from Galway, Mr Farrell moved to Donegal for its beautiful scenery and its people.
Now a father of three young children, he built his dream family home, a 3,500sq ft two-storey house in the countryside outside Raphoe in 2008.
Reputable, respected local builders were hired and he “spared no expense” on building, insulating and finishing his home, inside and out.
But spiderweb cracks started to break out, fracturing the plasterwork by the front door in recent years. And now cracks have also split down the corners of the house – a telltale sign of mica contamination.
“When we had it tested for mica, the engineer took eight core samples. Just by looking at it he said it 100% had mica. We don’t have the results yet but if he could see the mica in it just by looking at it – there must be a lot in there.
“And mica, in time, turns the block into dust, or into Weetabix.
“I worry that we’re three to four years behind Inishowen [the Donegal peninsula where much of the most severe mica damage has occurred so far] where houses have been crumbling around families.
“When you see families suffering with this it’s scary, especially when you have children in the house, when they’re asking if their house is going to fall down around them."
The Letterkenny estate agent said his dream home is now worthless.
“Your home is your castle.
“But I couldn’t sell it to anyone now.
“Homebuyers are now going to want proof that properties they’re viewing do not have mica. But the tests are expensive, who will pay for those?”
Many of his friends’ and neighbours' homes have also been contaminated with Mica and news that public buildings like schools and hospitals may also be affected is sobering, he said.
“How many of these bricks were sold over the years? No one knows.
Mr Farrell will march on Leinster House on Tuesday to demand support for those with mica-contaminated homes.
He believes the current redress scheme is “a defective scheme for defective blocks”.
Just to apply for the current redress scheme, Mr Farrell said that he has to pay €4,600 to have the materials tested and a report filed on the condition of his home.
Anyone accepted onto the redress scheme will then have to pay 10% of the rebuild and other associated costs which he said will be too expensive for many.
He wants to see the redress scheme amended to cover 100% of costs, like the pyrite scheme did for homeowners in Dublin and elsewhere whose homes were also collapsing due to that substance.
The difference between the two redress schemes reveals the divide between the way government treats Dublin versus the west of Ireland, he said.
“We in the west of Ireland are treated differently because we’re not from the big city.
“I hope all of Donegal will attend the march and show our feelings peacefully, show that we are looking for a proper redress scheme."
Donegal independent councillor Frank McBrearty plans to open a Mica-Pyrite Advice Centre in Raphoe to help locals like Mr Farrell.
He has called for the redress scheme to be amended so that those affected would be eligible for 100% redress with no funding cap (currently €247,500).
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