A devastated mother-of-two says she is at her wits end with the breakdown of her Letterkenny home due to defective building blocks.
Yvonne and Michael Shevlin and their two children Sarah, 11, and Michael Jnr, 6, are living in an apartment that she says is ‘crumbling away’ as it was built with bricks contaminated with Mica.
Yvonne and Michael bought the apartment in 2007 as a young couple with the aim of buying a house in the future, but those plans where left in tatters when problems started arising in 2013.
Minor problems started arising six-years-ago for the Shevlin’s.
Yvonne spoke of the devastation of paying a mortgage on a home ‘that should be demolished’ because it is decaying around her family.
“There is no one out there to help you, I can tell you that straight away.
“The legal system couldn’t help us, neither could health and safety, and the government have been dragging their feet for the last several years.”
Yvonne spoke of her fear of living in the apartment, which has considerably deteriorated over the last week following bad weather periods recently.
“The crack on the side of the apartment has got bigger and it has twisted the building and you can see right into the cavity of the wall at this point.
“It’s as if the front of the apartment is going to fall out, that’s what it looks like to me.
“We’ve never had the founds tested but, we know ourselves that they are deteriorating rapidly. There was a bit that has already busted out and the blocks are falling out as well.
“We had to pave and cement a new entrance into our apartment because the main path is beside a big crack and I just know it is going to go at any stage.”
Yvonne Shevlin’s apartment wall with cavity exposed as the presence of Mica is causing the brickwork to absorb water and cause cracking to internal and external walls.
Mrs Shevlin explained how the family cannot afford to move out of the hazardous environment because they have a ‘worthless mortgage’ to pay each month.
“You couldn’t sell our apartment for 50 cents and we have a mortgage on it,” she explained.
“We can’t pay that mortgage and afford to rent somewhere else, there is not a hope of that happening. So where can we go from here?
“We have been promised so many deadlines, but that means nothing to us.
“We need immediate help.”
As thousands of families like the Shevlin’s suffer due to the Mica scandal across the county, Donegal Daily understands that ‘under the arm’ legislation was to be produced in the Dail the same day as the Children’s Hospital overrun scheme.
The Minister for Housing said in January that work on developing the scheme is “well underway” and that he intends to “revert to Government with proposals for the scheme as soon as possible.”
A crack at the front of the Shevlin family apartment home in Letterkenny
However, a source close to the situation said at the eleventh hour the bill was pulled due to additional questions being required but ultimately ‘it would have been political suicide for the Government’ following the backlash over the Children’s Hospital overspend scandal.
It was also revealed on Wednesday that Donegal was among the hardest hit by spending cuts.
A representative from the Mica Action Group said that they too have concerns the redress scheme could be in jeopardy because of the recent cuts.
The spokesperson said: “There is always fears from our side and we have been expressing those fears regularly for months.
“The homeowners have a right to be frightened by this news and when we heard about the A5 and each department being asked to make additional cuts, it is always at the forefront of our mind.
“We ask our government representatives all the time about this and we were assured that there will be no issues in terms of these recent cuts.”
The group insists, although they believe the scheme will go ahead in due course, they won’t allow the government to delay this scheme any longer than it needs to be.
“It just can’t happen, it quite simply cannot happen. We won’t let it (be delayed further) first of all, and we would have to think about how we would move forward because peoples lives are at genuine risk at this point.
“We know that term is thrown around a lot, but as we see some of the videos surfacing online, you can now see that is becoming a reality.
“Sooner or later somebody’s house is going to collapse down on top of them.
“We’ve had enough of the pandering about and rubber stamping, the scheme needs to go ahead as quickly as possible.”
Homeowners in Donegal and Mayo continue to wait on the scheme to be rolled out despite government promises that work would begin before Christmas 2018.
“I was taking a video the other day and my young son came over and he said, ‘Is this building going to fall down mammy?#8217; and I had to tell him no,” Yvonne added. “But I am living in fear with different situations in this apartment including the gas because the place is cracking.
“There is no health and safety officer to tell us that this house is not safe to live in.
“There is a fire hazard as well but, yet, we have to live in it because we have a mortgage on it. We are really trying to make this place as safe as possible to live in.”
She said the worry is constant for the family and added: “There is only one thing that would need to be done to this apartment and that would be for it to be completely demolished.
“Unless you replace every block and found in that building you could never be sure it is safe to live in.
Shevlin is reassured that the situation will be resolved in the future but she insisted their family situation needed an urgent response.
“The Mica Action Group are great, they continue to push and that is good for them, but it is the immediate need for redress and I don’t see it in the near future because there is so much testing that needs to be done.
“I’ve waited that long, it will be a drawn-out process and by that stage it will be too late because families are suffering.
“The stress of living in that apartment wondering what is going to happen. I just let the kids go out and play on the green because I wouldn’t let them play near the house at all, it is too dangerous.
“People are buying homes in Ireland and for these people not to be getting looked after straight away is a disgrace.
“Joe McHugh has said that it has been passed at cabinet level, but again, that means nothing to us.
“We have had deadlines, upon deadlines, upon deadlines pushed back.
“I’m exhausted,” Shevlin said.
Having dealt with the situation for the last six years, the emotional mother said she can’t move her life forward and has fears she will enter into another winter living in the rotting apartment.
“You can understand how stressful having to go through a situation like this is.
“We have two young children in an unsafe house, it is always on your mind.
“Every time it rains or bad weather comes are way it is constantly there and you can’t move forward. Your life is hanging in the balance because you can’t dream of moving on to a bigger and better home with the children.
“I was surprised that the house has stood this long, to be honest,’ Shevlin added.
“But next year it will not stay standing and I could not stay in it for another winter.
“But where could we go? There is nowhere to turn.”
“It puts a lot of pressure on you as a person and in the family. I was so surprised when my son came up and said that to me that night because I thought he was just playing away.
“All that takes its toll on you,” she admitted. “My children are safer at school than they are in their own home and that is not right.
“We are standing here jumping up and down trying to grab the attention of anybody who will help and it feels like it is just no big deal, just no big deal at all to them.
“I did have a conversation with Damien English in Carndonagh last year and I asked him if we could even fix these houses even a little bit, due to the fear I have for my kids, and I was told not to touch the house at all.
“At that point, I just broke down and I started to cry, and I don’t understand how these people don’t see this like we do every day.
“It was a big investment for a young couple, we have now had a family and we can’t move on.
“Through no fault of our own, we have bought a faulty house and we can do nothing about it.
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