We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
MAYO COUNTY COUNCIL has come under criticism after its rejection of 19 applications for the Defective Blocks Scheme was overturned on appeal.
The scheme was set up to provide financial assistance to people whose homes were built with concrete blocks containing mica and pyrite.
Over the summer a number of impacted homeowners in Mayo were told that they had not provided sufficient evidence of damage to their homes, despite their submissions of engineer reports and test results confirming the presence of pyrite in the walls of their houses.
In the case of one homeowner who spoke to The Journal in August, the council’s own assessment report noted pattern-like cracking present in the external walls. Despite this observation, the council’s rejection letter to this homeowner stated “pattern cracking is not present”.
All 19 rejections that were appealed have now been overturned and these homeowners deemed eligible for the the scheme.
Barbara Clinton from the North Mayo Pyrite Group, speaking to Midwest Radio today, said this situation “should never have happened” as all of the applicants had reports from the approved list of qualified engineers outlining the damage to their homes.
She said these reports “should have been taken as Gospel” but instead the council had “done a box-ticking exercise from a desk and rejected those homeowners”.
“They didn’t even do a visual inspection of the homes and then those homeowners were put through six weeks of torture – and let me tell you, it was torture for those families – waiting for a decision,” she said.
On Monday impacted homeowners had heard from the council that a decision on their applications would be delayed by two weeks, but yesterday they were all contacted by the local authority informing them that their rejections had been overturned.
“Obviously Mayo County Council have not got a clue what they’re doing,” she said.
Sinn Féin TD for Mayo, Rose Conway-Walsh, said she was glad the council “had seen sense”, but questioned why these applications were ever rejected.
It was very obvious to me – and I’m not an engineer – from the houses that I visited in this appeals process that there was pattern cracking. I do believe they should have never been refused in the firstplace and I don’t know why they were. To me there’s no real evidence that they should have been.
“These homeowners were put through an awful lot of undue stress on top of the stress they were already experiencing.”
The Mayo TD said she is concerned for the mental wellbeing of impacted families, particularly the children living in homes damaged by pyrite.
“One woman was telling me her three-year-old daughter, when she saw another house said ‘Mummy, that house is cracked just like our house’,” she said.
“There was a couple outside the Dáil today from Ballina and it was their fifth weddding anniversary – they spent it with placards outside the Dáil, with their children at home.
“Another woman outside the Dáil lives on her own and is solely responsible for the mortgage, she said the bank won’t lend her another €40,000 to meet the gap between what’s allocated in the scheme and what it costs to repair the house.”
She said the objective of government has to be to end this stress for families as soon as possible.
The appeals committee is made up of three people, two of whom are external to the council. In a statement, Mayo County Council stated that the committee is independent and noted that it had overturned the original decision.
“The council is satisfied with its handling of the applications,” it said. “The council, as outlined at the September council meeting has received 106 Stage 1 applications of which 74 Stage 1 confirmation of eligibility letters have issued to date.”
The council said it was “very mindful” of the acute stress and trauma involved for homeowners who have defective concrete blocks and “it is not the council’s intention to add to this”.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Should the builders and cement provider be sued.
@Dave Barrett: There probably was no registered builders involved in these houses construction. A structural guarantee would have been provided if properly registered builders were contracted to construct these homes.
Also, cement has nothing to do with this issue.
@Dave Barrett: the quarry supplying the bricks went bust in 2010, as it was all coming to light so I believe.
Standard Government policy, always reject every first claim be it social welfare or careers, everything is refused.
Mayo county council screwed up? What a unique event!
Why should the state cough up, cant understand when something goes wrong us the tax payer bail the people out
What’s new. Most councils are resting homes for poorly motivated employees and are not accountable for their bad decisions.
People should not re-elect these councillors next time around.
@Mick McGuinness: all declared bankruptcy after the crash
@Mick McGuinness: Council employees made this decision not councillors. So public servants made the decision not elected politicians.
Sounds like they’re protecting their friends in the business, helping them avoid liability.
@Jim Z Clark: It would have served them better to plan ahead and regulate so that the industry had set up provision for failed builds to cover these major flaws. It’s bizarre that there was no inspection, no escrow fund or reinsurance in place. They were accepting fees for planning, VAT and licensing of the construction industry and expected them to be self-regulating.
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say