SHANE LOWRY HAS ended his partnership with Kingspan following a report on the Grenfell Tower fire where the Irish company was criticised.
“Kingspan and I have mutually agreed to discontinue our sponsorship relationship, which we believe to be the right decision for all concerned at this time,” Lowry said in a statement.
“Neither party will be commenting further.”
A small number of Cavan-based Kingspan’s K15 insulation boards were found on the columns around Grenfell Tower, where 72 people died in a blaze in 2017.
Following the publication of the final report of the public inquiry into the tragedy at the west London tower block, the relationship between some Irish sporting figures and organisations and Kingspan came under scrutiny.
The 1,700-page report said Kingspan “embarked on a dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market”.
The tower block was covered in combustible products because of the “systematic dishonesty” of firms who made and sold the cladding and insulation, inquiry chairman Martin Moore-Bick said.
He called out “deliberate and sustained” manipulation of fire-safety testing, misrepresentation of test data and misleading of the market.
Cladding firm Arconic and insulation firms Kingspan and Celotex faced particularly heavy criticism.
Arconic was found to have “deliberately concealed from the market the true extent of the danger” of using its cladding product, particularly on high-rise buildings.
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, the report said.
In a statement, Kingspan said it “extends our deepest sympathies to those impacted by the tragedy”.
Kingspan said the report “explains clearly and unambiguously that the type of insulation was immaterial”.
The first phase of the report found that the Grenfell Tower cladding did not comply with building regulations and that this was the “principal” reason for the fire’s rapid spread.
This cladding was not made by Kingspan.
The company has long said its K15 insulation product made up 5% of the insulation in the tower block and was used as a substitute product without its knowledge.
Some of the bereaved and survivors of the tragedy had called on Lowry and others to end their sponsorship arrangements with Kingspan.
Written by Mairead Maguire and posted on TheJournal.ie
