Deputy Charles Ward has raised serious concerns in the Dáil over what he described as a lack of transparency and coherence in the Defective Concrete Blocks Scheme, following a case involving a family caring full-time for a severely disabled woman in a medically adapted home now under remediation assessment.
The case relates to a home adapted in 2017 after the homeowner’s wife was left paralysed in a serious road traffic accident.
The house was specifically rebuilt around her daily care needs, including a wet room and an overhead hoist system used every day to lift and transfer her safely between bed, bathroom and wheelchair.
Deputy Ward told the Dáil that anyone assessing the property can see internal cracking in structural areas of the home, however, the property has been assessed under the defective concrete scheme with a recommendation for external wall remediation only, while internal structural issues linked to that care equipment have not been fully addressed in the proposed works:
