In Ireland and Connecticut, thousands of houses are cracking because the government fails to pay attention to the materials used to build them.

This negligence on both sides of the Atlantic has caused many families to lose their savings, their safety in a place where they feel safe, and their trust in institutions that should have protected them.

At present, this negligence has also cost Connecticut taxpayers at least $100 million. This price tag is easy to climb-all because the state does not need to conduct quarry testing for housing construction.

"This is a problem for the entire state, even if people outside the area don't want to admit it," said Steve Webner, manager of the town of Tolan, where a school had to be replaced at a cost of $46 million.

"This also caused the country to lose the value of the house," he said. A buyer who bought his own house withdrew after learning about the problems in the area.

But Ireland is ahead of Connecticut in resolving its failure.

Ireland has repaired at least 1,600 houses damaged by pyrite, the sister of the mineral pyrrhotite that destroyed houses in Connecticut. Connecticut has just launched its own remedial plan.

Most importantly, Ireland has guidelines to prevent destructive minerals from entering new homes. These rules are not perfect. But they defeated anything Connecticut had. The state has not yet developed a plan to prevent specific disasters in the future.

Connecticut has identified a quarry as the source of the pyrrhotite that destroyed houses: the Becker Quarry in Wellington. But this is not the only quarry in the pyrrhotite mining area.

State geologist Margaret Thomas (Margaret Thomas) drew a map showing that there is a quarry near the pyrrhotite area east of the Connecticut River.

As Ireland discovered sadly, pyrrhotite is not the only mineral that can damage houses.

In 2014, when Ireland learned from Muscovite that houses in County Donegal had collapsed, Ireland was preparing to repair houses damaged by pyrite in the Dublin area.

As the state’s geologist’s map shows, there are pyrite belts on the eastern border and southeast coast of Connecticut. It is also rich in mica. Where there are problem minerals, there are quarries.

Connecticut must study its geology more thoroughly and begin to monitor the materials entering the new homes, while repairing these materials with pyrrhotite. This country must demand more accountability, as Ireland has done.

Alan Farrell is now a member of the Irish Parliament. In 2007, he was a county councillor and lived in Kinseyly, north of Dublin, when he received a call from a neighbor saying that there was a TV crew outside. "This is the first time I have heard of pyrite," he said.

Ireland, like the United States, is enjoying the construction boom. House prices have soared. But news of this strange mineral suddenly made the house poisonous. This also explains the mysterious cracks in his house.

Pyrite is a type of iron sulfide, similar to pyrrhotite. It may take years or even decades for sulfide to cause damage to buildings. For a long time, mortgage companies have refused to provide loans for old houses containing pyrite in Cornwall and Devon, England-including those that survived the two world wars.

Even so, the Irish construction industry was shocked by the discovery of pyrite under thousands of new houses in the Dublin area. This mineral causes the gravel filling under the floor to swell and crack. The pyrite comes from a local quarry.

"You have to remember that the supply of construction materials and labor was in short supply at the time," said Orla Hegarty, an assistant professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Dublin. "So if someone can bring gravel to a location tomorrow morning and it's cheap, they won't be questioned too much."

"When the output doubles, the quality is halved," said Lorcan Sirr, a housing lecturer at Dublin University of Technology.

At that time, there was no effective sulfide testing system. Since then, Ireland has changed. However, Connecticut still does not have a quarry testing system for sulfides.

Alan Farrell said the news of the pyrite in his home was a devastating blow. "I could have started a family earlier," he said. "We put life on hold for several years."

The lawsuit began. In 2011, a settlement was reached with a builder. A trust fund of 25 million euros was established to repair 670 houses, including Mr. Farrell's house.

The Supreme Court of Ireland later found a quarry company to be responsible, saying that its gravel was simply not suitable for the job.

In Connecticut, only one lawsuit against a quarry has entered the judgment stage. The quarry won in 2003, partly because of the lax regulations on household concrete in state building codes.

"The only requirement of the code is related to the compressive strength of concrete, and the concrete in the plaintiff's foundation meets this standard," the judge wrote.

"Compression testing can't do that," said Dublin-based architect Mel Reynolds. They may not indicate whether pyrite or pyrrhotite is lurking inside. Only sulfide testing can do this. There is no mention of sulfide testing in the Connecticut Building Code.

In 2011, the Minister of the Environment of Ireland set up a team to find a solution to the pyrite problem-because the country's largest new home warranty company refused to compensate for the damage.

"HomeBond walked away and just said,'No, we don't pay.' The government let them get away with it," said Darragh O'Brien, spokesperson for the opposition housing affairs of the Irish Parliament.

Two years later, the Irish government launched a pyrite repair plan to repair the worst houses not covered by court rulings, legal settlements or guarantees.

Mr. Farrell said that the construction industry in Ireland and Connecticut did not understand pyrite and pyrrhotite before the disaster, which may be forgiven.

But there is no excuse to allow any harmful substances to enter the new home again.

"What are you going to do to prevent this from happening again? This is the key issue," he said. "If the Connecticut Legislature does not have an answer to this, I would argue that they should be replaced by those who really recognize the nature and scope of the problem."

Tomorrow: How Ireland protects homeowners

Carolyn Lumsden is a 2018 Puliam editorial writing researcher for the Association of Professional Journalists and is working with The Courant to continue researching specific issues that are crumbling in Connecticut. Ramsden retired in December as the opinion editor of The Courant.