Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

We have been the victim of a severe discourtesy by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government who is not practising what he preached when he was in opposition.

Just after the Dáil completed its first sitting in July the news about the pyrite infill disaster broke in north County Dublin. Residents in Drynam Hall in Kinsealy were informed by Menolly Homes that many households would have to be rehoused for up to ten or 12 weeks while the ground floor of homes with a high content of pyrite infill were excavated and removed down to a depth of 3 m.

A few weeks later my new constituents in Menolly Homes developments at The Coast estate in Baldoyle and in Beauparc, Clongriffin were devastated to learn that their homes would also have to be tested to discover if a similar problem was emerging from flooring infill also used at those locations. Since then I have had a steady stream of telephone calls and e-mails from other areas of north Dublin and Meath from householders who are intensely anxious to know if a defective underfloor infill was also used in their estates.

Media reports indicate that at least eight builders other than Menolly Homes have reported the problem to Homebond and that houses at the vast Castlecurragh Estate in Dublin 15 built by Shannon Homes have also tested positive for a high pyrite infill content. At a recent meeting of the North Fringe Forum, a consultative group on the huge urban region being built from Baldoyle to Dublin Airport, the unfolding construction problem was described as a catastrophe. Young householders and mortgage payers are dismayed at this incredible development and there is extreme anxiety at the reconstruction and insurance implications of the news from Menollys.

Pyrite or iron pyrite was formerly known as "fool's gold" because of its appearance and is an iron sulphide which expands if it is exposed to air or water. It reacts with oxygen and water to form sulphuric acid. I was informed in July that the quarry which supplied the defective infill is located near Ballycoolin in Dublin 15 and is owned by the Irish Asphalt division of the Lagan Group.

I have learned that between early 2003 and February 2007, approximately 2 million tonnes of infill stone was produced by this suspect quarry with a high pyrite content of 1% to 3%. Yet due to the total inaction of the Minister, Deputy Gormley, and his Department, only 100,000 tonnes, or 5%, has so far been traced, to the Menolly sites. It has been put to me that the other defective infill was used in perhaps thousands of new homes in north and west Dublin, Meath and Leinster. It is alleged that this infill was also used in many key infrastructural projects and it is known, for example, that the Lagan Construction Group was involved in the construction of projects like the Dublin Port tunnel. I am also informed that at least three other quarries in the Leinster region have a high pyrite content.

I reported to the 29th Dáil that the Dublin-Fingal north fringe is facing many key infrastructural deficiencies including a lack of public transport, schools, health centres, child care and youth facilities and Garda stations due to terrible developer-led planning aided and abetted by successive Fianna Fáil-PD Governments. The last thing that the area needed was this appalling news about pyrite infill. In the many contacts I have had with the Department, with city manager, John Tierney, and county manager, David O'Connor, on this matter, I am repeatedly told that the implementation of the building regulations is "largely self-regulatory." Likewise the invigilation of planning permissions, often for vast new urban projects, is paltry or non-existent.

I now call on the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Fingal and Dublin county managers to address their responsibilities which they have shamefully shirked in the past. The Minister, Deputy Gormley, must immediately establish a ministerial task force with the Fingal County and Dublin city managers to, first, carry out a full traceability audit of all building sites supplied by the Irish Asphalt quarry near Blanchardstown; second, investigate the location of any other quarries with a high pyrite content and arrange a traceability audit of each of them; third, in conjunction with the National Standards Authority for Ireland set up a national pyrite investigation and monitoring agency to guarantee the handback of fully repaired and rebuilt homes to householders; and, fourth, liaise closely with the governments of Quebec and Ontario in Canada which have faced a similar pyrite disaster and have developed protocols for compulsory chemical analysis of all construction infill and overseen appropriate compensation mechanisms for affected householders and public bodies. On the last request I refer the Minister to the valuable publication, Pyrite and Your Home by the Association Des Consommateurs Pour La Qualite Dans La Construction in Quebec. Hundreds of my constituents and perhaps thousands of others living in newly built estates and people who have built large infrastructural projects want the Minister to restore the status quo, to ensure houses and infrastructural projects are rebuilt if necessary and to ensure people are fully compensated, not just for the damage done to properties for which they are paying through the nose, but for the significant inconvenience and stress caused to them. I urge the Minister to take immediate action on the matter.

See this speech in context