Open letter to the Prime Minister
November 28th 2006

DEAR Mr Blair – It is 30 years today since Down District Council first refused to abate a smoke nuisance that entered my, then, almost new home from the house next door through what should have been a solid wall and wasn’t.
It was a smoke nuisance which, according to the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Complaints, “manifestly existed.”
Down District Council decided, instead, to cover up what is now recognised as a massive house-building fraud perpetrated by its predecessor, the former East Down Rural District Council, because to have provided me with the services I had been forced in law to pay for would have exposed that fraud.
We now know that many thousands of houses throughout Northern Ireland have been constructed – like my former home – with Terralux blocks, which did not even comply with the relevant BSI standard as required by the relevant building law at the time.
Dr. Ian Paisley MP obtained a Parliamentary Written Reply, stating that subsidy was even paid to the builder of my former home.
My long campaign has resulted in my being given a criminal record and being made a bankrupt by two different government departments through no fault of my own, but rather because I decided to insist on human and civil rights for myself and my family. Even the legal profession here has refused to assist me.
My story can be found on my website at www.gerryrice.net and I ask you Prime Minister to use your influence to insist that Down District Council deal with this matter now.
GERRY RICE, 11 Newcastle Road, Ballynahinch. BT24 8NE.