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A FAMILY IN Co Mayo has had to abandon their home as it is crumbling around them.
Michael Healy and his son Dan are sharing their story in a bid to highlight the pyrite plight faced by many others across the country.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, they say they knew there was something wrong with the house for several years – there were unusual noises and excessive cracking in the plaster – but didn’t get an answer until about two years ago.
Dan recalls: “We live in quite a boggy land area, so we carried out excavations to see if there was movement in the foundation, but nothing was going on below the ground.
“You could hear this almighty cracking, no one knew what it was.”
Michael tells us: “I was sure it was subsidence, I brought an engineer out to look at it to see if we could make an insurance claim.
When he got here he didn’t even need to get out of the car, he knew what it was straight away.
“He said, ‘There’ll be no payout on that – that’s not subsidence, that’s pyrite.’”
Michael sent blocks from the house away to be tested and, sure enough, they came back positive for pyrite and mica.
Both materials weaken concrete and cause it to crack and crumble over time.
Pyrite is a form of iron sulphide, and a type of the material – framboidal pyrite – can expand in the presence of oxygen and water. Mica muscovite is a mineral that also significantly weakens concrete.
The materials were cheap and sometimes used as ’backfill or ‘infill’ when constructing the foundations of houses – this became a common practice in some regions during the property boom. Thousands of houses around the country are affected.
‘A huge scandal’
“The bottom part of the wall fell out about three months ago, and the top fell out during the last big storm around two weeks ago,” Michael explains.
The family bought the house in Corclough West, Belmullet in 2000, after returning home from England. It was a new build at that stage.
Today, most of the mortgage has been repaid.
“I’d walk away if I could, I’ve a fortune spent on that house … Every time you think about it, you get stressed,” Michael says.
He has rented a flat nearby. His wife Catherine has been reluctant to leave the family home, but he says she too will have to leave soon.
I have moved out. My wife is still there, you can understand why she wants to stay. It’s her home and all her things are there, but she’ll have to leave soon … She’s tough, but I know it’s getting to her now too. Within the next week I’d say she’ll have to leave.
“I used to love painting it and cleaning it, I’ve just no interest in it now. There’s no point in even changing a light bulb in it now, it’s just not worth it.”
Michael, who runs a local grocery shop, says he had hoped to expand his business by getting a loan based on the mortgage, but that won’t happen now.
“If I sold something that wasn’t up to standard it’d be brought back to me, when it comes to this they think, ‘You bought it – tough.’ They could get away with murder.
My house isn’t the only one. It’s like cancer, there’s no cure.
Michael says he knows of several other properties within a 10-mile radius that have also been affected by pyrite and/or mica, telling us: “This is going to be a huge scandal in the west of Ireland.”
‘Their houses are falling down around them’
The pyrite remediation scheme is described as “a scheme of last resort for affected homeowners who have no other practical option to obtain redress”.
To be eligible, properties must be located within the administrative areas of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal, Kildare, Meath, Offaly, South Dublin County Council or Dublin City Council, and built between 1 January 1997 and 12 December 2013.
As of the end of December 2016, 1,498 applications had been received under the pyrite remediation scheme (620 in 2014, 373 in 2015 and 505 in 2016). There were 77 unsuccessful applicants.
Rose Conway-Walsh, a Sinn Féin Senator and former Mayo county councillor, recently raised the Healy’s situation in the Seanad.
She asked for the redress scheme to be extended to cover people in counties such as Mayo and Donegal. A number of advocacy groups have also been calling for this to happen.
Conway-Walsh said hundreds of homes across Mayo are affected, as are thousands of home in County Donegal.
“People in Dublin had access to a redress scheme. We need such a scheme.
Their houses are falling down around them because proper standards were not put in place and there were appalling building regulations and regulations for quarries. This matter must be brought to a conclusion and a redress scheme put in place immediately for the people affected.
An expert panel to examine the situation in Mayo and Donegal was established by Paudie Coffey, the then-Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, in April 2016.
Report due soon
Speaking about the issue last month, Senator Coffey said: “The previous government increased funding for the pyrite remediation scheme for the carrying out of remediation works to many of the houses that were affected, and strong and solid progress is being made.”
He said it is his understanding that the expert committee “is due to report soon”.
It has visited the houses affected which are literally crumbling around the families living in them due to concrete work that was insufficient and not of proper integrity.
He called for a debate on the issue to be held in the Seanad ”to establish what assistance is being made available and what is planned to assist those families who have been let down by poor regulation in the construction industry”.
Speaking about the group in the Dáil last July, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Renewal Damien English said: “Ultimately, the panel’s terms of reference aim to establish the facts behind the problems that have emerged in Donegal and Mayo and to outline technical options for addressing the problems identified in order to assist affected homeowners.
It is anticipated that the panel will require in the order of six months to complete their work. In this regard, I will await the outcome of the panel’s report before considering what further actions may be required to assist the parties directly involved in reaching a satisfactory resolution to the problems that have emerged in Donegal and Mayo.
In February, English said the Pyrite Resolution Board, with the support of the Housing Agency, is “responsible for the implementation of the pyrite remediation scheme” and he has “no role in the operational matters pertaining to the implementation of the scheme”.
In a statement to TheJournal.ie, a spokesperson for the Department of Housing said the expert panel has met on 12 occasions since it was established almost a year ago, adding that “a similar number of meetings have taken place with key stakeholders, including affected homeowners, the elected members of Donegal and Mayo County Councils, local authority officials, industry bodies, academics, public representatives and other interested parties”.
The statement continues: “A substantial volume of information has been provided by affected homeowners in both counties, as well as from Donegal and Mayo County Councils; additional information was also provided through the consultation process.
The panel have now concluded their meetings and are in the process of finalising their draft report which is undergoing legal proofing in advance of being finalised and submitted to Minister Damien English for his consideration.
“In this regard, the minister will await receipt of the expert panel’s report before considering what further actions may be required to assist the parties directly involved in reaching a satisfactory resolution to the problems that have emerged in the two counties.”
Public consultation
During a recent public consultation process – from 13 October 2016 to 17 December 2017 – about the remediation scheme and which households are eligible, the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) received 202 submissions from homeowners and experts.
Speaking about the process last month, the NSAI’s Technical Standards Manager Yvonne Wylde said: “On 19 January, the expert committee began to review each of the comments relevant to the standard itself and decide by consensus whether to accept the comment or not.
“We will ensure that the Pyrite Resolution Board receives all comments, including those not directly relevant to the standard.”
The new reactive pyrite standard is expected to be published by mid-2017.
The public consultation process refers to the new draft pyrite standard, rather than the remediation scheme and which households are eligible. Experts have been using a standard developed by NSAI to assess buildings affected by pyrite, and then using that to come back to the NSAI with proposed changes.
The decision on whom or what category of building qualifies for remediation of damage caused by pyrite is governed by the Pyrite Resolution Board, not the NSAI. The Pyrite Resolution Board is responsible for the pyrite remediation scheme.
‘You can put your hand through the wall’
So what next for the Healys?
“We’re just waiting and hoping the phone will ring, or else that we win the lotto,” Michael says.
The corners in my house are pushing outwards, all the windows and doors are buckled now. There’s serious power in it … the outside is moving and pulling the inside with it.
“Dan’s old room is inhabitable now, you can put your hand out through the wall.
“By the time [the panel] make a recommendation my house is going to be in the ground.”
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Very clear here the quarry and block / cement manufacturers are at fault. Proving whos blocks are in your walls, now that’s a quandary to be sure. Taxes will fix this and no one will ever answer for it.
@Phil Swan: Do you have to get a licence, to operate a quarry and have soil tests done to rule out any of these issues?
worked on construction project in russia. proper standards and enforcements in place. stage wise inspections. things called Acts of Hidden Works and Acts of Critical Structures had to be signed off by construction mgr, project mgr and quality mgr. you couldnt cover over things w/o Act of Hidden Works being filled out eg. compaction test before rebar, rebar insp. before concrete pour, core samples for testing concrete quality etc. If the structure failed those who signed off the Acts would have to answer for it in court. This all rather changes the approach to doing quality work….not cutting corners. for the above someone needs to go to jail and if not our politicians can tell us why and why we have no inspection regime during construction..
Ahh yes Senator another debate in the house. That will solve the mans problems. I see your all for what you did as a junior minister but you see you’ve not solved anything. Who made you Senator. Edna was it??
It’s absolutely scandalous that this scheme is not country-wide. Why is it only in specific areas, mostly on the east coast? Yet again, classic example of short sightedness of Irish officialdom….
In Cornwall this is called Mundic, which is the Cornish word for Pyrite, it is also called concrete cancer. When buying a house in England and specifically Cornwall a mundic test must be completed. There are many houses in the Cornwall built pre the 1950′s which are mundic and they cannot be insured or mortgage taken out on or against them. You will find that the material used in the concrete/blocks would have come from old mining workings as these would be pyrite rich and cheap if not free.
If anyone requires details for a company that can undertake the mundic block test please let me know and I can provide details.
Maybe Orla can do an article on, how a quarry gets its licence and the rules they had to follow? A kind of fact finding issue, we could all look at and may take more than copying and pasting?
Michael ring Michael Healy Rae he will sort it out for you or he will say he will that’s awful shlt.
No accountability for cowboy builders and now trades are kicking up bucks again. Same shit. Hardy bucks Seamus Mortimer will be around again.
The builders are not to blame here, the company that makes the blocks are to blame… why are they not being held to account?
The builders during only wanted the cheapest stuff, the quarries were happy to sell anything and everything, the guy government looked the other way. Soon we will be told it was actually our fault because we wanted to own houses. Isn’t that the usual answer of our government.
*during the boom
Ignorance is not a defence Paddy.
@Andy Wallace: How does a builder know, If the blocks/concrete he has bought in good faith and believing all necessary rules are followed to ensure a quality product is produced? If it contains Pyrite etc., where are the laws for quarries and who oversees they produce quality products?
Of course ignorance is a defence. You cannot be held responsible for sometime you could not have known about.
I don’t think so. That’s like saying that if you buy a faulty laptop you should take it up with the manufacturers. Fobbing people off, when their contract was with the builder who sold it to them.
#mayoforsam
There’s something distinctly wrong with this story, namely what appears to be a little exaggerating. From the video it would appear only one corner seems to be damaged and I’m afraid it looks a little too neat. Given the door is in a disgraceful state, I have to assume little or no maintenance. Why no shots of the inside? Perhaps the wife who’s still living their is a little camera shy. Bizzare story that’s stretching the imagination. I’ve seen real pyrite damage, this is certainly not.
This mans house was on prime time….last year. Plenty of shots of a crumbling house.
The blocks were sent away to be tested and they tested positive for pyrite the state of the door has absolutely nothing to do with it, did you even look at the photos the whole house is covered in cracks… the only thing bizarre is your comment
Joseph. Little or no maintenance?? Well if your house is falling to bits, I think a lick of paint on the door won’t do much. I feel for this family. Awful situation to find yourself in
It looks too neat? Implying the guy went out and knocked the corner off his house to fake having an issue that nobody will cover anyway. What would you suggest his motivation was? He was a fan of Miriam and did it to get on prime time?
@Joseph Dempsey: D you know, what a hammer is and how old are you?
@Stephen murphy: *Do*
@joseph Dempsey when framboidal pyrite is used in the manufacture of cheap building blocks and those blocks are used in the construction of a dwelling built on boggy land, as the owner has said, the humidity and moisture present causes the pyrite to expand exponentially. Basically it’s like putting expanding foam into those blocks, so the extensive damage seen is perfectly understandable. If my house was falling down around me i wouldn’t bother painting the damn door either.
Some of the comments on here are very insulting.The quarry supplied concrete blocks infected with pyrite.The problem didn’t manifest itself for five or six years.Someone said it was the hardcore in the floors that caused the problem.The floors are perfect and the walls are crumbling.All the affected houses have one thing in common and that is that all the blocks came from the same quarry in Killala.I can prove this fact 100%.There are one hundred houses infected with pyrite that we know of.Tests show the blocks contain pyrite.
A disgrace, shocking the way thousands of homes are affected, feel for the chap after spending all that money only to realise house is as good as useless
This problem is not confined to Dublin as some auctioneers maintain, but is countrywide. Buying a new house is a major gamble these days as the cracks take some time to appear but when they do it’s obvious that the house is doomed. The government are useless in this regard. Building regulations are meaningless when no inspections are carried out during construction. Having laws and not enforcing them is typically Irish. I have the greatest of sympathy to all those who now are living in houses falling down around them.What a nightmare !
Where did Homebond go to.Collected millions in insurance fees and rode off into the sunset.
this is Michael healy the once proud owener of this house id just like to say that the idiot that said I done this on purpose should cum and see my house obviously he knows little or nothing bout the subject and should keep his big mouth shut
a lick of paid this guy cant spell what would he know
You say you spent a fortune on the house ,, did you ever give it a lick of paid t ???
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