Mica Redress

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117966113#Comment_117966113

The government should pay for the restoration of the house to its original condition. However, people will likely be getting a better house, more insulation, new windows, new wiring, Ethernet cable, solar panels etc. So the house will increase in value, this latter "gain" should be funded by the government in the form of low interest loan. Payment on this load should commence when any regular mortgage is paid off or the loan should be paid if the house is sold.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117965976#Comment_117965976

The cap of 350k is no problems for the modest homes and the semi-detatched in estates.

The taxpayers could provide two or three houses for people sleeping on the streets for the cost of rebuilding a McMansion that was originally built by direct labour on the cheap with shoddy materials.

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968477#Comment_117968477

Why should the government/we pay? Why are these more deserving than others? Why should they get more than someone else looking for social housing? Because others are poor and as such don’t deserve and shouldn’t expect more? Because social housing is only for “sub-“REAL”-people”?

10000maniacs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968685#Comment_117968685

Because there is this money tree growing at the back of Leinster House, and €3.2 billion can be picked from it at any time, and there will be more than enough left for 100,000 social houses. 🙄

MBE220d

It is great to see so many concerned about social housing, we need houses ASAP for the usual crowd that has never done a days work in their lives or never will.

A nice A-rated for one at a cost of 500k will do nicely, no outrage about this crowd I notice.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969194#Comment_117969194

Whatever this scheme costs will be spread over many years, maybe up to 20yrs, so in the long run when you consider everything else the government will waste money on in the next 2 decades, I see this as a decent expense. Plus they will recoup quite a bit back in taxes, vat etc.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968685#Comment_117968685

These people should get help because the government failed to have proper standards for the production of concrete blocks.

jj880

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117966833#Comment_117966833

Once again your response has no weight. "It's nonsense" is not an argument. Your Nigerian prince reference is immature.

The working group reps didn't even know there was a delegation going to the European Commission so no-one is begging because "the case is very weak" as you state. One group is trying to negotiate directly with the government to get what they can for homeowners in the short term. The other group sees that these negotiations arent going to produce what is needed to fix all homes and have taken the first step to get justice and full compensation under EU legislation.

You can keep shouting "nonsense" all you want. Time will tell what can be done under EU law.

Good loser

If, as someone has said, this thing will be going on for up to 20 years it means those at the end of the 'queue' will have used up a lot of their lifetimes by the time they get redress. Plus how will the winners - the first to be relieved - get chosen? I suppose party affiliation will not be a factor!

How about Sinn Fein proposing the introduction of water charges to pay the bills. It would be one way of raising €500 to €700m per annum. Or even a surcharge on the LPT countrywide? That would be like the insurance levy paid to bail out the insurance companies when they failed. Of course it's the policy of SF to abolish LPT.

I don't see any reference in this thread to the proposal by that Govt working group. That the outer walls of the houses only be replaced at a cost of €220k per house, as it's only the blocks exposed to rain/moisture that are giving way. This would have a big impact on the gross costs of the redress. Notice with the mica only external damage shown in videos, whereas with the pyrite the views were invariably internal.

Would like to know some background. How many quarries were involved? From when to when? when did the problem cease? At what % mica did the blocks fail? Are houses in NI affected?

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969553#Comment_117969553

Will try those in order.

1) The people fixed first are the ones whose home might not see out another winter or serious storm without collapsing. Some houses are very very bad, and you can pull away the walls with your hands. Then other houses are only showing the initial signs of cracking, and may be a decade or so before they need fixed. The issue is, the sooner you fix them, the less the chance of the damage affecting the inner leaf.

2) I see no issue with LPT. I think we should all pay it. SF have made many promises of what they will do if in power, and the way this current coalition is going, they might get to prove their point to us all sooner than we think.

3) Replacing only the outer leaf is a controversial topic. A lot of the Gov experts and council engineers want this done as its the cheaper option (although why its being costed at 220k I'll never know, I know people who did it themselves and the labour cost maybe 15k), but most independent engineers won't stand over it, as there is no guarantee the inner leaf and the foundations will not be affected by damp and freeze/thaw. If the scheme was to replace outer leaf now for huge money, and then the inner leaf starts to crack in 10yrs, and the house has to be demolished and rebuilt, then the money spent initially on the outer leaf only was wasted. Its also been reported that those who got their cavities pumped with beads have actually helped the damp move between the 2 leaves of the house, and probably made the problem worse. And finally, some of the worst affected Mica homes do show serious internal damage too. Many homes are letting water in inside, and many internal walls are crumbling and pvc windows not fitting correctly any more.

4) The initial quarry was one in Buncrana. They were the largest supplier of blocks in Donegal. Their blocks were also bought in by other quarries during boom times, so many people thought their homes were grand because they didn't use the original quarry, but then found out they actually had the bad blocks. The earlier house showing signs of Mica is 28yrs old I think. And as for when it stopped! Well there is the 64 million Euro question! The council and Government first were told about crumbling blocks in 2013/14, but its looks like there was no investigation and the quarry continued to churn out the defective blocks up until recently. I read the other day that a block from August 2020 was found to have 15% Mica content. The spec is often argued. I have heard 1% is the upper limit, and I have also heard there is no upper limit. Believe who you want to believe on that one. Its as clear as mud. As for houses in NI, well recently when al this broke, Derry City council said they did a review of their housing stock and none were affected. But that doesn't mean there aren't private homes, businesses and other buildings which may have used that quarrys blocks. There would be a massive trade between Derry/Tyrone and Donegal, and its easy to think that many Donegal blocks made their way into the North. In fact, coming out of Strabane on the road to Derry, there was a detached house I saw maybe 5 or 6 years ago, and I said "that house has Mica".

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969320#Comment_117969320

So those others are lazy and poor and so undeserving.

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969490#Comment_117969490

The government standards were very clear about the quality of concrete blocks - and the Donegal blocks were in breach of those standards. So why is it the tax payers' problem?

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969327#Comment_117969327

Sure if there is so much money available, why not just give it to me? I promise to spend it all - which will give rise to lots of tax and ongoing benefits for the economy.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969592#Comment_117969592

Because the Government is meant to regulate the industry and ensure that materials being produced are fit for purpose. They didn't.

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969594#Comment_117969594

The tax payer is not meant to "ensure" anything about materials being for for purpose (please specify the law you believe has been broken)

And there are far more deserving cases for extremely limited amount of tax payers' money.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969595#Comment_117969595

Give me a few examples that are more deserving that perhaps 10,000 families homes literally falling down and leaving them homeless?

Funny how taxpayers money is always limited when its being spent on something certain people don't agree with. There was no limited amount of money to fund the PUP for folk to sit on their arses watching Netflix for a year, and we now hear that it was completely mismanaged and many got far too much given to them. There was no shortage of money when we had to get 64bn to save the banks. There is no shortage of money when we get a quote for a hospital yet inside a couple of years the real price is 500% higher. There was no shortage when Dublin properties had Pyrite and all the owners were given 100% of the cost as well as money for storage and rent while out of their homes.

The MICA issue is as deserving as anything else that is happening or has happened. Its an issue that is wrecking thousands of peoples lives, and not to even think what its doing to the mental health of many of them.

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969508#Comment_117969508

"Carries no weight!" You were the one trying to sell a pig in a poke that "ah sure the tax payer should just hand over cold hard money and in return a Nigerian prince -involving vague EU stuff to sound EU-ish somehow will give the tax payer back the money". And when asked to explain what they "vague EU stuff" actually was you first tried to say "I already explained" and when asked a second time showing you hadn't explanted you essentially say "stop asking questions".

So it remains the same: if the tax payer hands over money for this, the tax payer gets nothing in return - (and certainly less than if the tax payer handed the €3.2 billion to me and I promised to spend it a large chunk of it on higher VAT rated services and goods

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969598#Comment_117969598

Sometimes this is what you pay your taxes for, for Governments to do good with.

What about the money we send abroad in foreign aid, think thats around 1bn annually. We get nothing from that, yet we still do it.

We live in a society where people pay taxes and the Gov use them. The homeowners affected by Mica paid their taxes when building their homes. They pay VAT, income tax etc like everyone else. And the nature of a functioning society is that when 10,000 citizens need helping, they are helped as best as the state can.

If we didn't , why even build social housing? Why pay people PUP? Why give people fuel allowance? By your reckoning we should just tell everyone "hard luck, you're on your own".

Thankfully we don't live in the society you want to live in.

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969597#Comment_117969597

Actually homeless people Sick children - we could build a second, even bigger even more expensive hospital for them. Sick people - there are lots of areas in Ireland where health services are awful. That's just for 3 for starters.

I love the rant about the undeserving poor - and why the teeming masses (who will also be burdened with the bill for paying for this) are such awful scum.

NIMAN

I didn't say the undeserving poor, I was pointing out how Gov taxes are used for the betterment of society, to help those in need.

And there are currently potentially 10,000 Irish families in severe need of help which they can't fund themselves. The first thing you said was homeless people, well there will be a lot more homeless people in the state if the Mica issue isn't sorted.

Thats where the social contract comes into play, which we are all in as taxpayers. I know you might not like 'your money' getting used to fix crumbling homes, but thankfully the government have seen that they need to act and are trying to sort the problem as best they can. There are some things I don't want my taxes being used for, but hey what are you gonna do?

fash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969602#Comment_117969602

They (and other equally or more deserving homeless) can be best helped by building social housing - which would be owned, sized and specc'ed by the government. As a bonus, if there was a further mica issue- it would be for the government to worry about.

As regards what I and others should do- aside from counteracting online propaganda from those who wish the tax payer to carry the can, we should make sure politicians know that we do not appreciate our money being unnecessarily handed out for nothing in return.

listermint

Just to address some topics raised.

Foreign aid buys global soft power whilst also helping those who have nothing. It's not money sent away for no reason.

PUP made sure the country didn't fall on its knees economically during a global disaster if it needs to be pointed out why it was needed and the fact we are pulling out of the period without an incredible economic collapse shows that it worked. A few people always try to get rich on a scheme. (I'd imagine mica would be no different so that was a silly point to raise)

The majority of people wanted that hospital built elsewhere outside the M50 ring it's a farce from start to finish as is the Vincent's hospital site. I don't think you'll find any takers disagreeing with you.

Once again the 350k is more than Reasonable and the outer leaf debate. If a government engineer clears the fixes then that should be enough. You can find any independent engineer to say what you like tbh and most won't certify anything if it's a public issue and they've to put their name on it. Ducking away from an issue where they can make easy money elsewhere surveying houses.

jackboy

If a house collapses and kills a family this winter then 100% redress will be agreed the next morning and the whole country will be attacking the government for not agreeing with that day one. We are always reactive rather than proactive.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968342#Comment_117968342

A recent poll showed that most of an already squeezed middle Ireland is fully behind 100% redress.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968477#Comment_117968477

As it stands, the current (inadequate) redress scheme mandates that the homeowner will not be getting a better house. That is completely fair. They must reuse as much as possible. Any betterment must be paid for. I'm fully behind that.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968611#Comment_117968611

Any chance you could stop repeating falsehoods? I don't live in a McMansion. My house is crumbling down around me. It wasn't built on the cheap. No one knew at the time (except possibly the manufacturer) that the blocks were shíte. My builder is in the same situation. His house is also falling apart.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968685#Comment_117968685

Eh? Social housing exists. It is an actual thing. The fact that there is a shortage of social housing is on the government. Remember that when you place your next vote.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969553#Comment_117969553

'the winners'? There's no winners in this situation. People have already replaced their outer leaf and now their inner walls are cracking. My inner walls are cracking. I have to look at it every day. It's horrible.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969592#Comment_117969592

Because the government didn't enforce the standards and let the manufacturers self-regulate?

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969595#Comment_117969595

Okay. Why are there checks on hygiene standards in restaurants? The taxpayer is not meant to 'ensure' that...are they?