Taoiseach: Mica crisis will not force people to leave Donegal 

Mica activist Paddy Diver joins children from across Donegal at the gates of the Dáil on Kildare Street, Dublin, as they protest to highlight the ongoing mica crisis. Picture: Brian Lawless

The Taoiseach says he does not anticipate people having to leave Donegal because of the Mica crisis, but acknowledged the county's lack of housing supply would pose 'a challenge' while homes were being rebuilt.

Last month, Cabinet agreed a €2.2bn mica redress scheme which will see grants for affected homes capped at €420,000. Homeowners will receive €145 per square foot for the first 1,000 feet of a property, though this figure is expected to be kept under review.

Speaking to journalists, Micheál Martin said he does not envisage the fact that hundreds of homes will need to be vacated for remediation, or rebuilding will impact the overall housing supply in Donegal over the coming months.

He said first of all, there's the very substantial resources being made available through the mica scheme and it depends very much where an individual house is located — whether it needs to be replaced or substantially repaired.

"So, I think a lot of work still has to be done in terms of that phasing, but there will be challenges, of that there is no doubt, because of the fact that quite a substantial number of houses will have to be refurbished or redone again and some will have to be rebuilt.

"People will have to seek alternative accommodation for a period whilst that work is underway."

Resources

The Taoiseach said that the scheme would make resources available for people to rent homes while their houses are being rebuilt or repaired, but accepted that a lack of supply would be an issue.

"The resources are provided to enable people to rent whilst the houses are rebuilt but it will be challenging because of the overall shortage of housing in the country and that's manifest in Donegal.
"We will work with local authorities there and housing agencies to see what we can do in the interim.
"There's no super solution to that, we just have to work with people and see if we can work things through."

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Asked if he felt that people would have to leave the county because of the works, the Taoiseach replied: "I don't anticipate that."

At the end of November, the Dáil heard that some homeowners could be forced to pay €56,000 to rebuild their homes based on the formula devised by Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien’s officials, but Mr O'Brien said he is confident that after revising the square footage 'sliding scale' next year, homeowners will receive 100% redress.

Problems for Government

The mica issue has caused serious problems for the Government throughout 2021 and campaigners in Donegal have warned that they are examining the prospect of starting their own political party to contest the next local elections in 2024.

Campaigner Paddy Diver said it is time “the people of Donegal started looking after Donegal”.

Speaking to the PA News Agency, he said: “We’re not going away, there’s plenty of things happening in the background. We are seriously in big talks about running (election) candidates.

“The councillors in there at the moment are far too quiet.

“I look around my own local place and I’m starting to delve into other stuff that doesn’t work for us. There’s nothing for youths to do in our town. Not even a basketball court, not a tennis court, there’s nothing."

Mr Diver said any new political party formed as a result of this would not focus solely on mica but address long-standing issues in Donegal, "the way the Healy-Raes look after Kerry".