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| Keith Duggan 2-September-2023 |
“We hate our home,” says Prof Paul Dunlop, and he is speaking for many families scattered across north Donegal. Over the past three years, the Derry man has balanced his professional life as a glaciologist with an intense and often fretful investigation into the defective blocks that are steadily and irreversibly ruining the family home.
He is research director at Ulster University’s school of geography and environmental sciences, based at the Coleraine campus. He lives with his wife Siobhán and children Molly (22) and Oisin (15) in a housing development in Buncrana, where all 49 homes are effectively condemned and will ultimately be demolished. The Dunlops have already had approval in principle for a complete demolition and rebuild. But it is an exhausting process.
He is research director at Ulster University’s school of geography and environmental sciences, based at the Coleraine campus. He lives with his wife Siobhán and children Molly (22) and Oisin (15) in a housing development in Buncrana, where all 49 homes are effectively condemned and will ultimately be demolished. The Dunlops have already had approval in principle for a complete demolition and rebuild. But it is an exhausting process.
The only thing I want to salvage when it is knocked is… we have markings where we mark the height of our kids and have the dates written beside them. In the wood. That is the only thing I want to take out of our house.
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It is a life sapping experience for all those affected with the cancer that is the Defective Concrete Blocks scandal in Donegal. Once it is diagnosed there is no stopping it ... it is a pogressive disintegration of your home that cannot be stopped. ... The battle for 100% redress is raging as affected homeowners attempt to get the Government to do the ' right thing' and restore the homes of totally innocent homeowners in Donegal. Some heavyweight academics and scientists have joined the search for the successful strategy that will either shame or force the Government of the day to cough up. But, as some people see it, neither academia nor scientific evidence that proves the Government are at fault will move the civil servant mandarins one cm. to providing a ' genuine ' solution. This will not be won with pleading and begging at the back door of the big house. There is not one scandal in the history of the state where any govt was seen to step up and accept their guilt and provide the requisite redress. They have at all times fought the innocent victims with tooth and nail to the bitter end and never gave an inch. This enormous battle will be won or lost in the superior courts in the land and nowhere else. The campaign to date has been ill-waged by well intentioned individuals who do not recognise they re dealling with psychopathic civil servants who care less that the Homes of Donegal fall down around the ears of decent people who share none of the blame for this humanitarian crisis....
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