*Dr Martina Cleary. Photograph: Joe Buckley
CLARE PYRITE ACTION GROUP are to consider fielding a candidate in the next General Election.
Homeowners affected by pyrite have become fed-up with the approach of the county’s elected representatives and hit out at the broken promises they have been issued in their attempts to get redress.
In what is certain to grab the attention of Clare’s seven Oireachtas members, founder of the Action Group, Dr Martina Cleary revealed that the group will field a candidate in the next General Election if sufficient progress is not made in the interval.
Dr Michael Harty (IND) was elected to the Dáil in 2016 on the back of a ‘No Doctor No Village’ campaign which began with public meetings and ended up with the Kilmihil GP polling 8,629 first preference votes on his way to becoming a TD.
Support for the pyrite campaign may not yet be at the same level but the group is defiant to make politicians pay if they do not deliver. “We can get rid of them, they are only politicians, it is only a year and a half, our houses will be rotting for thirty years, Donegal is going to run mica candidates, we’ll run pyrite candidates and see how they like that,” Dr Cleary stated.
She added, “Some of us are going legal, it could end up going to the High Court and the European Court because I think the politicians are looking at a good chunk of billions here, we didn’t create this, their lack of legislation over decades created this, they better get their priorities right. It was within a matter of hours they could fork out €64bn to make a decision to rescue the banks and not the human beings that actually rescued the banks”.
“These politicians don’t understand because they go home to their lovely houses every night, they don’t have to sit there and worry about potential storms coming in or get up in the morning to see cracks on the house and wonder what will they do in their retirement, they don’t have to live with the ongoing physical and mental anxiety and stress that I’m seeing across this county,” the Crusheen woman said.
Vice Chairperson of the Action Group, Mary Hanley also issued a strong word of warning to politicians in the Banner county. “This is our first protest, unless something happens soon, it will be the first of many and every politician in this county, I know the councillors, TDs and Senators, you all want to be back in your offices in two years’ time, well then you better get up and start talking to Darragh O’Brien”.
Minister O’Brien was accused of lying to the Action Group at Saturday’s protest. Dr Cleary said their lack of trust extends across the entire political divide, “You heard Mary Hanley say that the Minister bold-face lied, I don’t have trust in that anymore, I don’t think they have any heart and I’m disgusted with Sinn Féin actually, Pearse Doherty’s statement in the Irish Independent, I’ve lost all faith in them, they are talking about the financial impact and not the human impact, they know full well it is going to be thousands of houses along the western seaboard, it is not going away”.
There are homeowners in Clare continuing to hide the fact that their home contains defective concrete blocks, Dr Cleary flagged. “I would say that with this damage threshold hiding your house is the worst thing because as soon as the inspectors come out they won’t see the damage, stop hiding. We have houses that are 36 years old, they won’t last much longer, what do they want them to come down on top of people of Clare because that will be the next thing”.
