REQUEST MADE: ADD COUNTY TO PYRITE SCHEME
SLIGO County Council has this week formally requested that Sligo would be included in a scheme to compensate people whose homes have been affected by pyrite.
Last week the Sligo Weekender highlighted how hundreds of homes in Sligo could potentially have to be repaired or in many cases demolished and rebuilt because of damage caused by contaminated building materials.
The blocks from which they are built are being eaten away by a chemical reaction caused by a naturally occurring mineral called pyrite.
The way in which pryrite affects blocks has become known as the “Weetabix effect” as it leaves the concrete blocks as easily crumbled by hand as the famous breakfast cereal.
At present there is a government scheme in place in Mayo and Donegal to provide householders affected in those two counties with up to 90% of the cost of repairing or rebuilding homes.
The scheme was put in place in those two counties because of the number of houses affected by pryrite in materials supplied by a major quarry in each county. In both of those cases there were high concentrations of pyrite in the material used by the quarries in the manufacture of blocks. But it has emerged that hundreds of houses built in Sligo, in different parts of the county, also contain materials supplied by these quarries. However it is only recently that the extent of the problem in the county has become apparent and there are now calls for Sligo to be included in what is known as the defective concrete blocks grant scheme. The issue was raised at Monday’s Ballymote-Tubbercurry Munical District meeting.
Cllr Joe Queenan said that both he and Cllr Michael Clarke had been rasising this issue previously and both were aware of a lot of cases in their area (west Sligo). He said that it was important that Sligo was included in the scheme that up to now was only available in Mayo and Donegal.
He asked acting council chief executive Tom Kilfeather what had to be done to get Sligo included. Mr Kilfeather said that there were actually two schemes dealing with pryrite problems. One was for houses affected by pyrite in the underfloor hardcore filling and other which was being talked about more in Sligo, was for defective blocks. “I know there is a lot of interest in this and the number of potential houses that could be affected is far more than was anticipated by anyone,” he said.
Mr Kilfeather informed councillors that just prior to the meeting he had written to the minister (Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage Darragh O’Brien) formally requesting that Sligo would be included in the scheme.
He said he had also brought to the minister’s attention that “potentially in Sligo there could be a couple of hundred houses affected”. Cllr Queenan thanked the chief executive for having taken action on this.
“There are a lot more houses now than we realised. People were reluctant to come forward and admit that they had a problem. But now that people are being encouraged to come forward there are a lot more houses than we thought.”
Cllr Paul Taylor said that it was also his information that there could be up to 200 houses affected.
“I hope that people will be given options to deal with the problem, whch they haven’t had up to now.
“People should also know that it was through no fault of their own that this happened, it was just bad luck.
“That word needs to go out and for people to come forward if they think they have a problem,” he said.
Chair of the municipal district Cllr Michael Clarke said that people were “embarrassed” to come forward “but they should not be because it was no fault of their own”. He suggested that they write to the four TDs for the constituency, asking them to work to ensure that Sligo was included in the scheme.