A 14-strong group of Donegal homeowners impacted by the defective concrete scandal is launching a judicial review of “fraudulent” testing standard IS 465 (2018).
Including Donegal County councillor Frank McBrearty Jr, the group will challenge the legality of IS 465 - deliberately created and designed, it says, to circumvent existing EU concrete manufacturing regulations.
Cllr McBrearty has long asserted the imperative of a judicial review given what he describes as the “demonstrable failure” of both government redress schemes.
Including Donegal County councillor Frank McBrearty Jr, the group will challenge the legality of IS 465 - deliberately created and designed, it says, to circumvent existing EU concrete manufacturing regulations.
Cllr McBrearty has long asserted the imperative of a judicial review given what he describes as the “demonstrable failure” of both government redress schemes.
Cllr McBrearty said:
Increasing numbers of Donegal homeowners are discovering the Defective Concrete Blocks Grant Scheme (June 2020) and its replacement, the Enhanced Grants for the Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks in Their Construction (June 2023), cannot and will not remediate their crumbling properties.
“That was never, ever their intended purpose,” he added.
This is obvious because both schemes are underpinned by a statutory instrument (SI 25) based on an Irish Standard (IS 465) which, in the case of Donegal homeowners, tests only for mica.In my opinion, we in Donegal are entitled to challenge the legality of IS 465 by way of judicial review based on that fact.We feel the Irish Standard should include all deleterious materials. We should test for everything if we are going to do things properly.If you want to find out the truth about what is actually wrong with your home, you have to forensically test it for everything. If the engineer visually inspects your property and sees structural defects, the only way you are going to be able to find out for certain exactly what is wrong with your home is to test it forensically.
The Raphoe councillor referenced the core sample test results provided to Donegal homeowners by Petrolab Limited in Cornwall in England.
He explained:
There are more than 2,000 sets of these results now available. Petrolab does what Irish laboratories are not doing. It gives the client a visual estimate of the reactive iron sulphate minerals in their core samples. However, this is not covered in statutory instrument SI 25 - therefore the schemes - and is not covered in IS 465 guidance protocol for testing.Donegal home and property owners are restricted to testing for mica, based on the now scientifically discredited theory of freeze/thaw - created by the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NASI) through Technical Committee 063.Regardless, Petrolab is telling clients, based on a visual estimate, their core samples contain reactive iron sulphate minerals, which under EU regulation should not be present in the concrete aggregate used to manufacture the blocks.My father’s house was the first in Donegal to have the sulphate attack analysis carried out. His testing was based on Petrolab’s expertise, not an Irish Standard. He now has a full suite of test results showing internal and external sulphate attack.When Petrolab completed its tests, we commissioned a geo-technical examination of the ground to enable Petrolab and our chartered engineer to finalise the report saying there was no contamination in the ground. That meant the report could state it was the aggregates which were causing the external and the internal sulphate attack the same as the internal sulphate attack that’s happening in the blocks.
As a result, the engineer’s recommendation was that Mr McBrearty Sr’s home and its foundations be fully demolished and the house rebuilt.
Cllr McBrearty continued:
Based on all that, the quickest solution for homeowners, in the opinion of myself and the 13 other homeowners, is to take a judicial review on the legality of IS465.If our application for judicial review is granted, based on what we have to say about IS 465 and SI 25, it would be over in a matter of weeks.I am of the opinion, even if we lose the judicial review, it opens up the same successful course of action taken by Enda Craig and the community in Moville to prevent a sewage treatment plant being built at Carnagarve in Inishowen.It would have been easier if we’d been able to get just one TD out of 160 to take the judicial review, than me as a councillor and the rest of the group. The risks would not be as high. It has been done before, in 2010 by Pearse Doherty - over the delayed by-election in Donegal South West - and in 2013 by Thomas Pringle - over the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).
To be continued ...
⏪Hugh O’Donnell is on the ground in Donegal.
Good stuff Hugh - your pieces are always well read, which indicates that there is an interest in the topic covered. Keep them coming.
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