Tag Archives: Clare Pyrite Action

CLARE campaigners have voiced concern at the amount of time available to address an Oireachtas committee this Thursday afternoon on the bill underpinning the new defective concrete blocks grant. Last Tuesday, Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien confirmed that homeowners in Clare and Limerick are to be given access to the revised scheme. The legislation to activate the grant will come before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing on Thursday, via a mechanism that has been described as “accelerated scrutiny”. This falls short of full Pre-Legislative Scrutiny (PLS), which had been sought by homeowners’ groups including the Clare Pyrite Action Group (CPAG). However, it is seen by some as a compromise position, in that it reduces the likelihood of delays in passing the legislation before the summer recess. The Housing Committee will sit from 1pm to 8pm on Thursday to discuss the Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by Defective Concrete Blocks Bill 2022. The founder of the CPAG, Dr Martina Cleary, has been …

Expert report states Clare should have redress access ONE of Ireland’s leading experts on defective blockwork has found Clare’s pyrite problem to be similar to that in Mayo, where several hundred homes are affected. In a detailed technical report prepared for Clare County Council and submitted, since the end of July, to the Department of Housing, Simon Beale and Associates (SBA) said the nature of the blockwork problem here is very similar to that in Mayo. The 29-page report, released to The Champion under the Freedom of Information Act, repeatedly highlights the technical similarities between the situations in Clare and Mayo. The Defective Concrete Blocks Grant Scheme was opened in 2020 after a long-running campaign for redress by homeowners in Mayo and in Donegal, where the mineral mica is believed to be present in thousands of homes. Simon Beale, who is a recognised expert on defective blocks, and has assessed and tested over 150 homes in Mayo, compiled the report …