Mr. John Wickham:

The causes of the issue that originally presented itself came substantially from the concerns of homeowners in Donegal, which pointed towards mica. I think that was the origin of it. Through some radio commentary, a number of people identified that they had similar issues.

From that point, in around 2013, those findings were brought to the Department to investigate the issue. A commitment was given in 2015 to establish the expert panel on concrete blocks. It did a scoping exercise on the general nature and potential causes of the issue. It published its report in 2017, which was the basis of the recommendation to establish the committee on IS 465. It emerged from that point.