Irish defective block crisis

Common card · No. 431771

The Irish defective block crisis is an issue concerning the structural integrity and safety hazards for homes constructed using concrete blocks containing excessive amounts of deleterious materials, mainly sulphide minerals and free mica. To date the counties within the Republic of Ireland most severely impacted have been County Donegal and County Mayo, with other counties having fewer affected buildings. An expert committee established in 2016 by the then Minister of Housing and Urban Renewal investigated the causes in both County Donegal and County Mayo, and concluded that the principal cause of the damage was due to the use of defective concrete blocks. Within county Donegal this was originally termed the Mica scandal in 2011, which is the point at which homes and other buildings began showing signs of cracking and decay. The term "mica scandal" arose because the expert committee had observed that defective concrete blocks within County Donegal contained excessive quantities of the mineral...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Pascal Terjan from London, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0