Kingspan, the big Irish multinational, is running a major PR campaign to cover up its role in the Grenfell fire.
The company, which supplies materials to the building industry, made a profit of €866 million last year. It produced an insulation material known as K15.
According to the final report on the Grenfell fire, ‘K15 could not honestly be sold as suitable for use in the external walls of buildings over 18 metres in height generally, but that is what it had succeeded in doing for many years’
Worse, from 2006, it started selling a new version of K15 which was ‘without question a different product from what it had previously been selling’. Yet it concealed the fact that this was a different product from one which passed a fire safety test in 2005.
The report therefore concluded that there was ‘persistent dishonesty on the part of Kingspan in pursuit of commercial gain coupled with a complete disregard for fire safety’
Once again capitalist profits came ahead of safety and honesty.
We need full disclosure from the company of where later versions of the K15 product was used in Irish apartment blocks or other buildings.
The government should immediately demand an audit and get access to Kingspan documents. Kingspan should then be forced to pay for its removal.