Pyrite grant for Clare ‘in five weeks’

PYRITE homeowners in Clare will have to wait another five weeks before they can apply for grant support, according to the county’s Fianna Fáil TD. 

Tempers flared at meeting in Ennis on Friday evening (June 16) and that update met with both scepticism and anger. Several homeowners challenged Deputy Cathal Crowe over what they see as previous broken promises and missed deadlines in their three-year campaign. While deadlines for ministerial sign-off  on the new grant, slipped on June 1 and 14, several homeowners angrily recalled Minister Darragh O’Brien’s visit to Clare in August 2021, and the promise of support “within a matter of weeks”. 

Deputy Crowe assured homeowners that despite a last-minute delay, over concerns in Donegal – one of the three other counties covered by the grant – they would be able to make applications “five weeks from now”. 

Deputy Violet Anne Wynne, who was the only other Oireachtas member present, was sharply critical of the delay saying that for homeowners, “hopes are diminishing and confidence is gone”. “At one of the last public meetings on this, I was heavily pregnant,” she recalled. “My daughter, Collins, is now 16 months and homeowners still don’t have access to the grant. No excuse will ever justify the impact that pyrite is having on people every day and every night.”

At the outset of the meeting, Clare Pyrite Action Group (CPAG), Dr Martina Cleary said fears were growing over the approach of the Dáil recess and the potential for further delays. “It is now a year since Clare was approved to join the scheme,” she said. “Why are we waiting for Donegal to get sorted out? They shouldn’t be stopping the rest of the counties. That could go on for a prolonged period of time.”

Deputy Crowe outlined that Donegal had “some last minute frustrations” which Minister O’Brien would be clarifying. “He is intending [to sign] by next Friday [June 23], if not the following Monday,” Deputy Crowe said. “So [that’s] seven to ten days from now. He said, ‘That’s it, the regulations are being signed into place’. Furthermore, he said that he expects [on] the most important detail of all, when can you apply for it, he said around five weeks from now there will be a live application process, where homeowners can apply to the system and start, across the summer, getting their pricing and looking at getting construction work underway in the autumn. You’ll be applying, please God, around five, to five-and-a-half weeks from now. It is frustrating that you are bundled with the other counties, I get that.”

The Fianna Fáil TD urged Councillors Ian Lynch and Donna McGettigan, who were also in attendance, to put pressure on the local authority to recruit the necessary facilitators to support homeowners. “The summer is going to be busy for you all, we need a facilitator in place, but the regulations are going to happen,” Deputy Crowe said. 

Both councillors agreed to look into the recruitment of a facilitator. Councillor Lynch added that homeowners could not wait another week, let alone five. “Saying we could be having construction in the autumn sounds like wishful thinking from Cathal,” he said. “The deterioration over the last 12 months has been phenomenal. I’ve never seen anything like it. Once you apply, getting the grant is a long process. We’re an awful long way away from it.”

Homeowner Joe O’Donnell from Newmarket said that from past experience, people were sceptical. “We all know that we are going to be back here in three months time talking about this,” he said. “We’ve heard it all, Cathal, before, so many times. We’ve heard it all. Enough is enough.”

Séamus Hanley, whose badly-cracked home in Drumline was visited by Minister O’Brien in August, 2021, said homeowners had been “left hanging”. “We have been waiting and waiting and now we’re being told to wait five more weeks,” he said. “Go back to the minister and tell him we’re not fools. Give him that message from me.”

Kilkishen’s Danny Moloney said it seemed that all that homeowners can do now is “wait and pray and hope”. “How many times have we heard that the scheme is about to open?” he said. 

Another homeowner told Deputy Crowe that, “If you don’t live with pyrite, you don’t understand”. 

Health concerns for homeowners were also raised, as were issues of rising mortgage interest rates despite the negligible value of pyrite homes. Other concerns focused on access to schemes like the Fair Deal for nursing home payments. Several homeowners sought updates on promised legal action against quarries. Deputy Crowe made a list of seven issues which he undertook to clarify for homeowners. “At least you had the courage to face us,” Mr Hanley said to him.

In response to a query from The Champion, the local authority said: “Clare County Council is in a position to receive online applications relating to the Enhanced Defective Concrete Blocks Scheme when the overall scheme is officially announced as being open for receipt of applications by the Department of Housing Local Government & Heritage”.