*Protesters in Ennis on Saturday. Photograph: Joe Buckley
CRUMBLING homes in Co Clare due to the presence of pyrite in concrete blocks has been labelled “a humanitarian crisis”.
Sligo businessman, Seamus Maye the founder of the International Small Business Alliance addressed Saturday’s protest organised by the Clare Pyrite Action Group which saw approximately 200 hundred people march on the streets of Ennis.
Holding the protest can make progress “calling out this scam,” he stated. “What we’re dealing with is a humanitarian crisis, it didn’t just happen, our problems with deleterious materials gone back a long way. It goes back 55 years to a corrupt toxic relationship with the construction sector and successive Governments and low standards or what I’d call no standards”.
Prior to a national pyrite and mica protest for 100 percent redress on June 15th, Seamus claimed that the people were “hoodwinked” with an agreement already made with Government and some activists on a working group.
He warned affected Clare homeowners, “you are not within an ass’ roar of getting 100 percent redress”. The Culleenamore man said quick efforts were made to bail out the banks in 2008 but the same approach was not evident this time round, “if the banks are important then what about the people”.
For over two and a half decades, Seamus has been pursuing a case against Irish based multinational building materials group CRH. He claimed that the company’s anti-competitive prices in Ireland led to the closure of his family’s quarry and concrete business in the 1990s, CRH has denied the allegations.
