Local couple pin their hopes on Pyrite Panel

A young Ashbourne couple are hoping that their pyrite nightmare will be addressed by the government in an upcoming report due to be published early next month. Jennie Doyle moved into her semi-detached house in Ashewood Green with her husband, Paul, in 2005 but the young couple had no idea that their dream house was slowly cracking up from the affects of the damaging mineral. To add insult to injury, the estate was recently left off a list of housing estates classed as 'unfinished', which would have made them exempt from the recent, controversial €100 housing charge. Eight homes in the Ashewood estate are known to have been affected while many other houses there have not. Residents, like the Doyles, affected by pyrite, which expands on contact with moisture, have mobilised and have formed a group called 'Pyrite Action' to address the crisis, which can be found on Facebook or contacted on pyriteaction@gmail.com Cracks in the walls were initially dismissed as minor by the builders of the Doyles's house. The company which built the houses has since gone into receivership, to which Dublin accountants McStay Luby were appointed, leaving the Doyles with little hope of being compensated. The Doyles have had little luck with structural insurers Homebond either, with a payout anywhere near the estimated €40,000 needed to repair their home. "After we got married in August 2009, we looked into things and got Homebond to examine things. They got back to us just saying it needed 'further examination'," said Jennie. Homebond dug a hole into the infill in April 2010 to test for pyrite but things were already out of hand just three months later. "At the end of July, I got stuck in my bedroom and I had to ring Paul to come back to the house," she recalled. The walls had buckled the door shut. "I immediately rang Homebond telling them it was now a health and safety issue. Three days later, a contractor came to the Doyle's house and told Jennie; "That's pyrite." By September, Homebond had confirmed to the Doyles that the presence of pyrite in the house's infill was causing the spreading cracks through the walls, ceilings and floors. On 23rd December, written confirmation was finally emailed to the Doyle's but was "only received through sheer persistence". They quickly had the support of then opposition TD Shane McEntee who has raised the issue in the Dáil and is a leading political campaigner for a solution. Last week, he said those on 'unfinished' estates should not have to pay the household charge. Even with Mr McEntee's involvement, Homebond's "full and final" March 2011 offer to the eight homeowners living in Ashewood was just €7,994.04 - a fifth of what was needed. "We need €40,000 and then we have to move out and back in," said Jennie. "Of the eight involved, a number of us said we needed more time - we were given 12 weeks to reply to the offer - we needed legal representation as what it was was a full and final offer. We were advised that there was 'no way we could accept that'." Then, in August, Homebond withdrew the offer, leaving the Doyles and an estimated 20,000 homes around the country - including a number in Kentstown, Enfield and Dunboyne - in limbo. Jennie Doyle is, however, hopeful of a report due from the Pyrite Panel, a working group inviting submissions from those affected in the hope of putting a mechanism in place to rescue stricken homeowners. "I do love the house and we put money into it, wooden floors, for example, but with cracking doors and door frames...not now," she said. Jennie said she has lost sleep over the situation, but is determined to continue unbowed and the couple are expecting a child in the summer. For the moment, the Doyles are living in hope of a solution. But, like the household tax, they have to wait and see. "Will we pay it? As of now, I'll just say we're waiting on an exemption."