Josephine Kelly and Sean McGee

An interview with Josephine Kelly and Sean McGee in two parts.

Firstly, Josephine and Sean invited me to their home in November 2022 - the day before the Concrete Conference in Letterkenny.

They told me of their own experience of replacing the outer leaf of their home at their own cost before any schemes had been set up.

And of course we discussed many other issues concerning Defective Concrete Blocks.

Secondly, we recorded a remote interview we did just a few days ago to get an update of their view of what had happened during the last week.

It was the week that the Defective Apartment scheme was announced and when Cian O'Callaghan of the Social Democrats pointed out to Housing Minister O'Brien that the Minister had managed to underspend monies for Housing to the tune of just under €1 billion last year.

LINKS

If you'd like to do some further research, here are links for the items that we discussed (where available)

RTE Prime Time on "Mica" from 2016

If you do a search for "pyrrhotite" in the National Standards Authority of Ireland Standard for the use of aggregates in concrete, you'll see that the amount of pyrrhotite allowed is less than 0.1%

Here is a clickable index to all speakers at the Defective Concrete Blocks conference that took place in Letterkenny on the 15th December 2022

Engineer Aidan O'Connell saying that he knows of quarries currently knowingly still selling defective concrete blocks

Here is the Chair of the Expert Working Group on Defective Blocks, Paul Forde, in June 2022, saying that it won't be possible to know whether or not foundations should be included until NSAI reports from it's investigation into the matter. Then he adds, with no scientific basis whatsoever, that he doesn't have any personal experience of problems in foundations due to pyrrhotite.

Here engineer Aidan O'Connell backing up Mr Forde at the same committee meeting, saying that he believes and is  "relatively comfortable" that there won't be any problems with foundations. 

On the same day, Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien says that "it is understood" that foundations are not affected. The Minister is saying he wants to push on with legislation based on the opinions of Mr Forde and Mr O'Connell even though the NSAI has not reported back any scientific evidence. This policy says that homes could be built on problem foundations. 

2022 Defective Concrete Blocks Grant Scheme: Your Questions Answered 

A Google search for Connecticut and pyrrhotite

Cornwall Council - A guide to Mundic block

Mundic on Wikipedia

Petrolab Testing Service in Cornwall, England
Petrolab has done a lot of testing for homeowners in Ireland. How did this come to be? Not sure? But their experience of the local Mundic issue which includes iron sulphide problems might be why some engineers may have recommended Petrolab to Irish homeowners with Defective Concrete Blocks.

A list of who is on the IS.465 Committee and who has left or been removed from it.

Here are the 2 Facebook Groups Josephine helps administer...

Redress/Compensation for Mica/Pyrite/Sulphate Victims Facebook Group

100%Redress/Compensation for Mica/Pyrite/Sulphate Victims

Defects in Apartments Report of the Working Group to Examine Defects in Housing

Charlie McConalogue on Highland Radio regarding Defective Apartments and Retrospection that Will Apply to Defective Concrete Block Homeowners