The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
ALMOST a year after a revised grant scheme for homeowners with defective concrete blocks was agreed, campaigners say thousands are still “trapped” in unsafe houses.
In a strongly-worded letter to the housing minister, action groups in Clare, Mayo, Donegal and Limerick, have pleaded for an update on when the new scheme will be live. In the correspondence seen by The Clare Champion, action group leaders, including Crusheen’s Dr Martina Cleary, said “homeowners are trapped in unsafe, unhealthy homes because they have no other option”. The letter, copied to all Cabinet members, has also sought an assurance that enough temporary accommodation will be provided when homeowners need it. “Given that thousands of affected homeowners will have to avail of the scheme in the years to come, and there is a national crisis in availability of rental properties all over Ireland, how is the Dept. [sic] of Housing working with the Local Authorities in the counties affected to ensure there will be sufficient temporary accommodation?” the letter asked.
The lack of information on when applications can be made to the new scheme has been described as “a further significant source of stress” on top of the “physical, psychological and financial stresses that a defective concrete home brings”.
“Responses to recent correspondence and parliamentary questions were disappointing,” the letter added. “They were largely a reiteration of known information and did not serve to update or reassure homeowners with the detail and progress they desperately need. The affected homeowners across Ireland are not unreasonable, they are simply ordinary people and families who are being pushed to the edge, consumed by years of anxiety and uncertainty – still not knowing when they will be able to escape this scourge.”
The original time-frame for the scheme suggested that applications would be taken before the end of this year. “This timeline was hugely disappointing for those affected who are desperate for a path forward,” campaigners have told the Minister. “We are now in the final quarter of 2022; regulations that were to be published in the autumn are now being pushed to end of the year and homeowners still do not know when the revised scheme will be live.”
Questions have been posed about liaison with the Society of Chartered Surveyors of Ireland (SCSI) on grant rates for Clare and Limerick; when the regulations will be published and when the new scheme will open. A call has also been made for a central hub to streamline the application process. “Local authorities’ functional capacity in each county are not designed to manage a scheme of this scale, evidenced by the significant delays and a lack of productive communication with homeowners in counties where the existing scheme is in place,” the letter added.
Further questions have been raised about the negotiations to ensure that remediated homes are “insurable, saleable and mortgageable”. A call has been made for monthly progress updates from the Housing Agency.
Concerns previously expressed about the concrete levy, reduced last week from 10 to 5%, were reiterated. The letter described as a “cruel irony” the fact that increased building costs will hit those remediating their homes. “Until Government acknowledges and overhauls the broken regime of self-regulation, taxpayers are effectively being asked to sign blank cheque to remedy the violations of an industry without accountability,” the letter concluded.
After coming under major pressure from homeowners, government agreed last November to increase the grant to cover 100% of costs, up to a cap of €420,000. In June, it was announced that Clare and Limerick would be added to the list of counties covered by the grant.
