Call for Kingspan to face Grenfell charge
TOWER FIRE CLADDING FIRMS IN SIGHTS
FORMER British housing secretary Michael Gove has said criminal prosecutions should be brought against Grenfell Tower cladding firms, including Irish outfit Kingspan.
Companies that are “still making vast profits without acknowledging their full responsibility” must also be punished financially, he suggested.
Writing in the Sunday Times, Mr Gove claimed attempts to punish Kingspan, Arconic and Celotex when he was in government had been blocked by “bureaucracies”.
“Because Kingspan is based in Ireland, and Arconic’s European operations and Celotex are in France, our jurisdiction was limited. But we were determined to go after them,” Mr Gove said.
The final report of the Grenfell Inquiry, published last week, said the west London tower block was covered in combustible products because of the “systematic dishonesty” of firms who made and sold the cladding and insulation.
Insulation
Kingspan had, from 2005 and even after the inquiry began in the wake of the fire, “knowingly created a false market in insulation” for use on buildings over 18 metres tall (59ft), it said.
Celotex then, in an attempt to break into the market created by Kingspan, “embarked on a dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market”, inquiry chairman Martin Moore-Bick said.
In its statement last week, Kingspan said it welcomed the report, “which is crucial to a public understanding of what went wrong and why”.
“It explains clearly and unambiguously that the type of insulation was immaterial, and that the principal reason for the fire spread was the PE ACM cladding, which was not made by Kingspan,” the company’s statement outlined. “Kingspan has long acknowledged the wholly unacceptable historical failings that occurred in part of our UK insulation business. “These were in no way reflective of how we conduct ourselves as a Group, then or now.”