Thousands of homes in Ireland are falling apart. And the horror just won’t end

It started in early summer 2018 in her son’s room. There was only a small hole in the wall near the window. What is causing concern almost nowhere in the world is raising alarm bells in County Donegal, Ireland. Yet Mary Lafferty did not recognize the harbinger: “A family member was one of the first to have problems with their home around 2010. “Yet we were convinced that it wouldn’t bother us,” she tells Watson, looking back.

The Laffertys live on Inishowen, Ireland’s largest peninsula at the northern tip of the country. 40,000 inhabitants live here in an area the size of the canton of Neuchâtel. The largest town, Buncrana, has less than 7,000 inhabitants. Here you’re far away from the modern offshoots of Alphabet, Amazon and Meta that have transformed once-sleepy Dublin into a tech hotspot since the late 1990s. In Inishowen, Ireland still lives up to the fairytale clichés: wild coasts, picturesque landscapes – and above all, lots of sheep. Several scenes from “Game of Thrones” were filmed around the corner and the national sheep shearing championships took place here in August.

But the idyll is deceptive. At Inishowen, more goes wrong than just the house blessing. The epidemic is particularly widespread here: “It’s like cancer,” Mary Lafferty explains, “and like cancer, it needs to be removed.” What the mother of three describes is known in Ireland as the ‘Mica crisis’: houses that are less than twenty years old suddenly show cracks in the walls. It starts off inconspicuously, a little hairline crack here, a crack there. But the barely visible damage turns into longer and deeper dents. Eventually they cover entire facades like a spider web. This is level one.

In the second phase, the masonry becomes brittle and deteriorates to such an extent that parts fall out or can be broken out by hand without any effort. The house is now in the final phase. The residents have to move and hand their beloved four walls over to the wrecking ball.

This fate will also befall the Laffertys. Their house was built in 2004 by Mary’s father, an experienced construction worker, on land given to the young teacher by her brother. The move took place in 2006. Five years later, the first houses showed signs of decay. Initially there were only a few dozen, but that grew to hundreds, thousands. In counties Donegal and Mayo, 7,000 family homes are said to be affected. In addition, there are numerous sheds, garages, workshops, but also school buildings and hospitals. “The question is not who has it, but who doesn’t,” read the headline in the Irish Times. The total damage amounts to more than four billion euros. Increasing trend.

It is clear that the built-in concrete elements are to blame. They decompose over the years. Experts still don’t fully agree on why exactly. In 2017, a committee concluded in an 80-page report that the problem was that the mica content was too high. One percent would be allowed, certain of the blocks built had up to 57 percent. The theory: The excessive mica content in the concrete blocks reduces their weather resistance. The damage was then caused by frost. This story persisted for years – and was also called the “mica crisis”.

Paul Dunlop was also initially convinced of this theory. 49 houses in the immediate area have to be demolished. This also applies to his own. They were all built between 2003 and 2008 and all made of the same concrete elements. But when a material sample reveals the mineral pyrrhotite, the professor of glaciology at the University of Ulster suddenly begins to have doubts: “That made me suspect that more than just mica was involved. I started researching pyrrhotite. And I asked Andreas for help.”

Andreas, that is Andreas Leemann, head of the concrete technology research group at the Swiss Federal Materials Testing and Research Institute EMPA. Leemann, Dunlop and a team of specialists took samples, examined them with X-rays and a scanning electron microscope, created thermodynamic models – and at the end of 2022, after carefully weighing all the results, they came to the conclusion: the unacceptably high The proportion of pyrrhotite in the elements used cause a chain reaction, dissolving fundamental components of the concrete, such as calcium silicate hydrates. The consequence of this is fatal: the building material decays. And that’s really true. Video footage shows a piece of concrete that was once a supporting part of a house turning to dust as it falls to the ground. After more than ten years, the true cause of the alleged mica crisis was found.

Unfortunately for homeowners, their obligations to the banks are more durable than the building materials. They don’t just crumble: “We have a mortgage on our house – even though it is no longer worth anything. “It amounts to around €1,400 a month,” says Mary Lafferty, describing her situation: “We have to continually downplay the severity of the problem for our mental health and that of our children.”

The family can still stay within the affected four walls. But soon they will have to look for a new place to live. Finding one can be difficult. As in Switzerland, there is currently a shortage of rental apartments in Ireland. The mica crisis, the term still used despite the EMPA research, comes at a time of a general housing crisis. In the past ten years, apartment rental prices on the island have doubled. The same applies to real estate prices. Before 2013, 60 percent of all Irish people aged 25 to 34 owned property. Today it is less than 30 percent.

The Laffertys are also hit hard financially: “We will have to fall back on money we have set aside for the children’s education. And we have to borrow from relatives.” But other family members are also affected by the crisis and will also lose their homes: “Two of my sisters have defective homes. I certainly never feel like I am alone, given the large number of affected families in the community.”

The feeling would be justified. The banks look the other way, the insurance companies do not feel responsible, the producers of the affected concrete parts play innocent lambs: “The failure of the standards has disappointed us all,” says Cassidy Bros. According to the Irish Times, the building materials manufacturer supplied the materials for 80 to 90 percent of all single-family homes built in Donegal in the 1990s and 2000s. The family business had an excellent reputation: its concrete elements were considered the best. After the official closure of a factory, Cassidy no longer produces concrete elements, but continues to work in the construction sector, to the dismay of some of those affected.

Further south, in County Clare, where more than 1,000 family homes with the same problems have also been identified, in two-thirds of cases the defective material comes from CRH. With a turnover of almost 33 billion euros, Cement Roadstone Holding is one of the largest companies in Ireland and number three worldwide in the building materials segment.

Trying to identify a main culprit, a reflex in disasters like this, is not so easy in this case. The Cassidy brothers emphasize that they have always adhered to government construction standards and carried out the necessary tests with their own laboratory. These were regularly checked by independent auditors. Cassidy Bros. however, did not want to answer further questions from the “Irish Times” about this. A lawyer explained that the questions were suggestive.

These days, it’s surprisingly difficult to determine whether Cassidy behaved appropriately. At the time, controls were the responsibility of local authorities – and their limited budgets. This meant that building authorities could not analyze material samples and enforce the implementation of the regulations. Instead, self-control was relied upon. “The state has been in bed with the cement industry for 50 to 60 years,” Seamus Maye told the Donegallive portal. He must know. The entrepreneur produced concrete blocks himself for decades. “The laws were not enforced and the rules were and still are lax. There is no doubt that the state will ultimately have to pay for the damages.”

This puts the ball in the government’s court. The plural ‘governments’ would be a more appropriate expression. This is now the third crisis to be faced with this since the outbreak of the crisis. During the same period, the chairmanship of the responsible ministerial office was held by no fewer than ten different men from four different parties. The first aid program in 2020 was therefore inconsistent. In theory, it promised to reimburse 90 percent of the damage. In fact, there were significantly fewer, because the program contained various cuts. Demolition and removal costs, urban planning and construction work, damage to windows and the kitchen, for example, would not be covered, nor would work on the foundation be covered. Demolition and new construction would have been unaffordable for many of those affected.

After large-scale protests, a second aid program followed – from a new government. Although the maximum amounts for repairs and new construction were increased, fundamental problems remained. This means that only those who can demonstrate appropriate material testing will be admitted to the course. This amounts to 5,000 euros and you must pay it yourself. Moreover, the money is always paid out retroactively. In addition to finding a new place to live, homeowners must also arrange a bridging loan. According to experts, the average cost of demolition with new construction is between 60,000 and 70,000 euros. Too much for retirees and young families. “The government is completely failing us,” said Mary Lafferty, commenting on the situation.

The Laffertys have little hope of support from the utility. Your house is too big, needs to be reduced in size and made wheelchair accessible – and needs a new foundation. The Laffertys are missing 250,000 euros. Still, they signed up for the aid program a year ago — and haven’t heard from authorities since.

Mary estimates they can live in their home for up to two years. She doesn’t yet know what will happen next: ‘The fact that my son is in a wheelchair makes things even more complicated. I honestly don’t know how to solve the problem. We will probably need help from the local authorities. To receive this, we must first become homeless.”