Victims of pyrite scandal have suffered enough..

THERE is nothing worse than a Government that doesn’t have a heart, especially when you know they are more concerned about spin and optics than helping people.

A classic example is the mica and pyrite scandal affecting thousands of people in Donegal and Mayo.

The old saying, ‘Your home is your castle’ is so true.

You save up, you take out a mortgage and you put every penny you have into it. It is everyone’s dream to own their own place.

But what happens when you wake up one morning and suddenly your house starts falling down?

Cracks appear at the front, the back, on the ground, inside and outside.

The blocks and bricks crumble and your whole life with it.

Your home is suddenly worth nothing. It has to be demolished. You are up to your eyes in debt with a property that is worthless, and yet none of this is your fault.

It all happened because the blocks used to build the houses came from a quarry which contained a group of minerals in the rock called mica or pyrite.

When these substances are exposed to moisture and oxygen it creates a chemical reaction that causes cracks or fissures to open up.

The Government is also at fault because the State regulations at the time were not strong enough to police the quarries.

The State should be there to help citizens who are in trouble.

Instead what we get is a pennypinching, appalling squabble which is causing deep stress and mental strain to all the victims involved.

The powers that be – and most notably Housing Minister Darragh O Brien – have offered a 90% State redress scheme. This means the people whose homes are destroyed still have to find 10% of the cash to rebuild their houses, which on average is €40,000 and it is money they do not have.

Asking for this lousy 10% is mean-spirited, fundamentally wrong and a typical move by some clown in the civil service.

I have spoken to many of these people and they don’t have the cash.

But worse still, the banks won’t lend it to them, never mind the credit unions.

So what part of ‘Do you not get it?’ do the Taoiseach Micheal Martin, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar and indeed the whole Cabinet not understand.

People can’t turn dust into cash.

The saga is a classic example of how Fianna Fail, once the party of the working class, is so out of touch. When a similar problem occurred in Dublin several years ago, a 100% redress scheme was put in place.

So if it is good enough for Dublin, it should be good enough for the people of the west of Ireland, who already feel they are being treated like second-class citizens in their own country.

Stop insulting them and don’t ask them for the 10%.

Get their houses rebuilt as soon as possible and stop their nightmare.

Where there is a will, there is a way and there should be no excuse to oppose this move from any TD in Government.

What these poor people have been put through is truly shocking.

It is time for the Government to find a heart.

People whose homes were destroyed must find 10% of rebuild costs