The government's shift from the 90/10 scheme to the 'enhanced' scheme was primarily aimed at removing independent engineers and downgrading homeowners who had been granted unwarranted Option 1s by these engineers. Both MAG and the defective concrete victims were misled.
This change wasn't about acknowledging the shortcomings of the 90/10 scheme or a genuine effort to provide a 100% redress scheme out of goodwill. The narrative that the government wanted to correct the 90/10 scheme, which had effectively become a 60/40 scheme, is misleading.
The real turning point came when Ambrose McCloskey revealed that the crumbling blocks were due to Reactive Iron Sulphide Minerals (Pyrrhotite) and not Mica, as indicated by Petrolab test results. This revelation forced the government to reconsider its approach.
Independent engineers under I.S. 465 (focused on Mica in Donegal) realized they couldn't professionally endorse partial fixes based solely on Mica and began insisting on complete demolitions for all remediations. The government couldn't financially support this drastic shift from replacing some affected outer leaf blocks to full demolitions.
To manage costs and control the scheme, the government needed to exclude independent engineers from the decision-making process and hand over control to the Housing Agency and Donegal County Council. The Housing Agency aimed to correct exaggerated remediation options previously given by engineers under the 90/10 scheme. Given this context, it's unlikely that appeals to reinstate the original options will succeed.
This transition from the 90/10 to the enhanced scheme illustrates how the government and senior civil servants misled MAG and homeowners to achieve their objectives.
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