Ms Josephine Murphy:

I am going into my 11th year of fighting, begging and pleading. I was one of the people who showed the expert panel around my home town, Belmullet, and organised that visit. The same team came twice and then drew up their report. What I found interesting about the report was that I think their disclaimer is really and truly an attempt to cover their backs. The panel found it necessary to print a disclaimer at the beginning of its report, a copy of which I have to hand. It states:

The Expert Panel did not commission or carry out any tests on buildings or building materials itself and was dependent on technical information supplied directly to it by homeowners and concerned parties. The Panel have no responsibility for the accuracy of the technical reports and information received by it and the Report should be read in that light. It was not part of the Panel’s remit to apportion responsibility for any building defects drawn to its attention and it has not done so.

The panel came back twice to examine the same houses after about a six-month gap to see how fast they were deteriorating, but not one core sample was taken and not one block ever left Belmullet. The only block that left Belmullet was in March 2014, when a team of us went to the Custom House to meet officials from Phil Hogan's Department at the time. We brought one of the defective blocks in a fertiliser bag and we were told to go home and sue the builder because the Department did not deal with pyrite in blocks but only with the hardcore in foundations.

The panel's remit from the Government was not to commission testing or verify the defects in the blocks. Why did it get that remit? It suggests the Government knew all along there was a problem, and that is why we have ended up with IS 465. That needs to be investigated. As Dr. Cleary said, there is a conflict of interest here, of which we are all very much aware. Most of the people who drew up IS 465 are now on the review panel again. It is so frustrating-----