By Jonathan Magee
TENSIONS surfaced at a recent Lifford-Stranorlar Municipal District meeting as councillors clashed with senior council officials over the failure to produce a report on defective blocks in social housing stock.
The director of housing, MD services and capital projects acknowledged that work had commenced on a motion adopted eight months ago by Cllr Frank McBrearty and his fellow councillors.
The original motion sought an independent judicial statutory public inquiry into the defective concrete block crisis. As part of this inquiry Cllr McBrearty had called for testing results and statistics on defective blocks in social housing stock.
However, the director told the meeting that progress had stalled, explaining that “a data protection issue arose along the lines that this was personal information.”
The response drew an immediate and sharp reaction from Cllr McBrearty, who said it was the “first time this was flagged” as an obstacle — despite him making multiple representations on the issue over many years.
He pointed out that the problem could be easily resolved by simply redacting the names of the tenants concerned.
“The director doesn’t want to deal with me. I’m very angry. It’s public housing — redact the names of the owners. Donegal County Council owns the houses. Full stop.”
The Independent councillor insisted he was owed both answers and respect.
“I topped the poll and I better start getting the respect I deserve — the motion was passed and the information was requested nine months ago.
“Elected members should be given the information,” he said.
Cllr McBrearty also raised concerns about the standards being used to assess affected properties, arguing that social housing must not be evaluated solely on the IS645 standard — which applies primarily to mica — but must be assessed against standards relevant to reactive iron sulphides, specifically I.S. EN 771-3 for blocks and I.S. EN 206 for concrete.
The director of housing responded that the council would progress Cllr McBrearty’s enquiry with the relevant people.