Mica scandal: Northern Ireland family face £100,000 bill to repair home as lawers claim many more to come

The Irish government has had to set up a major redress scheme for owners of some 5,700 homes which crumbled due to bricks made of pyrite and mica. The minerals absorb water, which can cause walls to crack and crumble.

Now Londonderry couple Danny and Kate Rafferty appear to be the first confirmed case of a house in Northern Ireland suffering the same plight. A Dublin law firm says hundreds more NI homeowners may be affected.

The Raffertys first discovered what they thought were settling cracks some years ago. However after more spider cracking on the outer walls of their home, tests this year confirmed the presence of high levels of mica.

The family are now facing a heartbreaking situation, and will need a major loan of up to £100,000 for repair works, just a few years out from paying off their mortgage.Speaking from their Beragh Hill Road home near Ballyarnett, just a stone's throw from the border with Donegal, they described how they built their beautiful home in 2006, and, like many people, sourced materials on both sides of the border."We put up the house and after a while we had a few cracks in it and it needed painted anyway and they said, 'aw it's just settling cracks',” Danny Told the Derry Journal. “Then another few years went by and all the paint was blistering. I phoned a painter and he came up and thought it was because there was no bonding solution. We paid for it to be painted again."

Danny added: "I heard about the Mica thing but didn't think it really affected me. But after the second time we got it painted, I thought, this is crazy here, and was asking everybody, 'Is it Mica?', and was told 'no, no, no'. I had a couple of blocks left over outside and I went to move one one day and it just disintegrated in my hands, and I mean disintegrated."

Laboratory tests have now confirmed that high levels of mica were used to build their home.

Being located in Northern Ireland they do not qualify for the Irish Mica Redress scheme as it is at present. The family has enquired about potential redress beyond the government scheme and say their case is in the process of being taken on as the first 'international' Mica case.

The News Letter asked Derry City and Strabane District Council how many other properties in NI were likely to be affected.

It replied that it has not been made aware of any other affected properties in the council area, "despite an extensive desktop exercise and consultation process carried out in 2018".

However Dublin legal firm Coleman Legal LLP says more and more homeowners are coming forward from Northern Ireland.

"We have had about twelve [people] up to recently, but that number has now gone way up and we are just dealing with that at the moment," Managing Partner Dave Coleman told BBC Radio Foyle.

"I think we are heading up to about 30 at this point and our information tells us that there are hundreds of homes affected by this scandal in Northern Ireland."