DEPUTY Pádraig Mac Lochlainn says he was astonished to learn that no forensic examination has been conducted of a quarry thought to be at the heart of the defective block scandal.
The Sinn Féin TD was speaking following a meeting of the Joint Housing Committee.
It was convened to discuss a recent audit of block makers in Donegal.
Nine sites were inspected as part of the survey which found levels of administrative non-compliance but no general concern with the actual building products.
The Joint Housing Committee included officials from the Department of Housing as well as representatives from the National Building Control Office and the National Standards Authority of Ireland.
Pádraig Mac Lochlainn said his take-away from the meeting was that no “fine tooth comb” examination has been carried out to get to root cause of what has led to so many homes crumbling.
Mr Mac Lochlainn said, “What I was astonished to learn was that there has not been a petrographic examination of the quarry thought to be largely responsible for the vast majority of these defective blocks.
“I could not believe that has not been done because it is essential and vital. To not have carried out a fine tooth comb analysis is unacceptable and deeply hurtful to the victims of this crisis.
“If I can use this analogy – imagine a major health scare which destroyed thousands of lives and no forensic examination carried out to get to the bottom of it. That is what emerged at this meeting.”
Deputy Mac Lochlainn said only the banking scandal had cost the state more money and it was “inconcievable” the state was leaving open even the slightest possibility of it happening again.
Under current laws quarries in Ireland still self-regulate and self-certify by hiring privately paid geologists to carry out inspections.
Pádraig Mac Lochlainn said it was still not clear whether reports provided by operators were independently checked and followed up by state-appointed experts.
“We need to be carrying out these forensic examinations to find out how it can be that in the past blocks were okay but in the last two decades they were not okay.
“The state needs to do that to find out what happened here and what mistakes were made with this particular quarry. And hopefully that would lead to them not making the same mistakes again.
“The system that we have whereby quarries self regulate and certify, it is not robust enough and it has to be challenged.
“That is what I took from the meeting with these three bodies, that what we have is not robust enough.”
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