Are we allowed to talk about KINGSPAN

[Dave]

I'm boycotting the ground until it's officially called Ravenhill again.

[solidarity]

If we're looking for a crumb of comfort, at least Kingspan held up their hands and admitted that some of their people were naughty boys. No-one else seems to have done this so far.

[UlsterNo9]

Hopefully after today we can talk about them again…. Damning verdict on a company that seemingly had no concern for safety falsifying tests/certificates and whilst not directly to blame for this incident showing total disregard… can we call it Ravenhill now

When did we stop calling it Ravenhill....

[CIMANFOREVER]

Never, never, never.... It's spiritual

[justinr73]

Seems to be a(nother) piece in the BT sticking the boot into UR.

[CIMANFOREVER]

Don't read that rag- is it Suzanne Breen arch supporter of the Belfast Feminazi network IMO?

Will I get 4 years for "hate speech?" by Comrade Kier and his Stasi/ NKVD?

[CIMANFOREVER]

Saw it now- McBride. No mention of Kingspan Breffni/ GAA/ Golf?

[volvo]

Hi CI

Well down the spiel from McB three small mentions


Ulster Rugby is not alone. Irish golfer Shane Lowry is happy to take Kingspan’s cash, describing the company as “the global leader in high performance insulation”.

Cavan GAA and golfer Leona Maguire are also sponsored by Kingspan.

[CIMANFOREVER]

Cheers Volvo could only read about two lines as I refuse to subscribe. Hypocrisy of the highest order from BT. I'm sure GAA and Golfing Ireland will tell them to mind their own bidness

[volvo]

For anybody that's interested in this bile have pasted copy by McB below
PS sorry for length of post so dont shoot the messenger


Ulster’s Kingspan disgrace: Spineless response to Grenfell Inquiry shows rugby is more interested in money than morality
Province’s main sponsor was excoriated in report for its culture of deceit and the dangerous insulation product that played a part in fire disaster which left 72 dead... but there’s only silence from Ravenhill

While the money rolls in, Ulster has looked away from the devastating evidence of how that money has been made


Sam McBride
Today at 07:00
When Ulster Rugby renamed Ravenhill the Kingspan Stadium in 2014, there’s no evidence it knew the company was consciously endangering human lives in pursuit of a quick buck.
But, for years, Ulster Rugby has known that. To its shame, Ulster has never shown the slightest inclination to put morality above mammon.

While the money rolls in, it has looked away from the devastating evidence of how that money has been made.

Wednesday’s public inquiry report into the Grenfell Tower fire confirmed what was apparent to anyone following the evidence to the inquiry over recent years.

This was a company with a culture of festering depravity, where for years senior staff not only knew they were engaged in mass deception, but where they knew better than anyone else how deadly that could be.

They’d seen the tests of insulation burning ferociously, they’d been involved in actively deceiving weak regulators, they’d faked tests to get their product on to higher buildings — and one of them even joked about imagining fire running up one of those giant structures, as happened at Grenfell in 2017.

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This was behaviour a child of primary school age would have the morality to understand was wrong.

It wasn’t some innocent mistake, but a calculated scheme to maximise profit irrespective of the consequences.

Many millions of pounds of that profit have been showered on Ulster.

What has happened is not only a human tragedy. This episode will be taught on business courses as an example of how damaging a misjudged sponsorship can be — to both parties.

Without its high-profile sports investments, Kingspan would be a largely unknown company.

Its profile has increased public anger; no longer is it a faceless corporation, but the company whose name is on the rugby shirts fans wear.

It’s been even more damaging for Ulster. At a time when it is hoping to sell season tickets and preparing for its first pre-season match this afternoon, the team’s sponsor has yet again undermined the team.

Only a decade ago Ulster exemplified the best of us: cross-community, forward-looking, welcoming to outsiders, part of the wider success of Irish rugby, and a source of such local pride.

The Ulster Rugby rape trial exposed indefensible behaviour by some players, but the Kingspan association goes much wider.

On Wednesday the firm released a sickening statement that sought to minimise its responsibility.

It said the inquiry report “explains clearly and unambiguously that the type of insulation (whether combustible or non-combustible) was immaterial, and that the principal reason for the fire spread was the PE ACM cladding, which was not made by Kingspan.

“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. While deeply regrettable, they were not found to be causative of the tragedy.”

That’s deeply misleading. The Grenfell Inquiry report is 1,700 pages long. Very few people will even read some of them. But there are hundreds of pages on Kingspan, and they’re withering of this appalling company’s behaviour.

The firm was taking credit internally for effectively changing the rules so it was easier to get flammable material on to buildings.

From 2005 until after the inquiry began in 2017, Kingspan “knowingly created a false market in insulation for use on buildings over 18 metres in height” by claiming that its product K15 had been tested as safe for that purpose.

That, the inquiry said, was “a false claim, as it well knew… 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”.

Tests of K15 were “disastrous”, but “Kingspan did not withdraw the product from the market, despite its own concerns about its fire performance”.

Weak regulators were cajoled or misled to allow Kingspan to continue flogging unsafe material.

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A certificate for its supposed safety “contained three important statements about the fire performance of K15 that were untrue. It used a form of words suggested by Kingspan and drawn from its own marketing literature”.

Kingspan deployed “dishonest strategies” which succeeded because of the incompetence of those regulating such rogue companies.

Its dishonesty meant that, even three years after the Grenfell disaster, it continued to support the use of its highly flammable product for use on tall buildings.

The company was “disingenuous” about test results and “cynically exploited the industry’s lack of detailed knowledge” by relying on the fact “an unsuspecting market was very likely to rely on its own claims about the product”.

There was a “fundamental falsehood at the heart of Kingspan’s marketing strategy”, which was “not being made in error or by rogue junior employees but with the knowing approval of a senior manager”.

For years the company marketed and sold K15 “relying heavily on tests which had been carried out on a different product. That was not the result of a mistake, as [employee] Dr Rochefort claimed, or misunderstanding; it was done deliberately. The relevant test and classification reports were not withdrawn until October 2020, following the Inquiry’s investigations”.

That’s more than three years after the company had seen what happened at Grenfell.

After fundamentally altering its product in the years prior to the disaster, Kingspan sold it without fire safety certification.

When eventually tested in 2008, the result was, in the words of a Kingspan employee, a “raging inferno”. It was so dangerous the test was ended early lest the laboratory catch fire.

The employee said the material burnt ferociously “on its own steam”, and was “very different” to previous insulation.

Another test saw the product fail “abysmally”. A third test failed, as did a fourth.

Kingspan employees aware of the serious problem pretended to be surprised. One told colleagues: “I’m spinning so much I’m dizzy.”

When Wintech Group, a façade engineering company, raised concerns about the safety of what Kingspan was doing, the firm’s technical manager Philip Heath told a colleague: “Wintech can go f**k themselves, and if they are not careful we’ll sue the a**e of them.”

The inquiry said this exposed “a casual disregard for public safety at a senior level in Kingspan”.

By 2013 Wintech’s attempt to raise the alarm led to a meeting attended by Kingspan managing director Peter Wilson.

But that didn’t prompt a radical rethink. The following year Kingspan employees tried to rig a test by sending a modified version of its product for examination.

Even that product couldn’t pass the test, yet Kingspan engaged in what the inquiry said was a “double falsehood” of claiming this test showed its even more flammable product could be used on tall buildings.

The inquiry described senior Kingspan executive Adrian Pargeter as “dishonest and entirely unconvincing”.

The company engaged in “a carefully planned, carefully concealed and long-running deception”, the inquiry said, in which there was “deeply entrenched and persistent dishonesty on the part of Kingspan in pursuit of commercial gain coupled with a complete disregard for fire safety”.

Kingspan has sought to minimise its role in Grenfell, highlighting that only 5% of the insulation came from it, with most made by a rival, Celotex.

But that shows how the company continues to try to mislead.

The inquiry found that Kingspan — while not responsible for Celotex’s own dishonesty — had created a “spurious market” which “drew in Celotex as a competitor” and acted to “create the conditions that encouraged [dishonesty] and in which it was able to flourish”.

While experiments commissioned by the inquiry confirmed the insulation wasn’t the principal cause of the fire’s rapid spread, “the presence of the insulation and its ability to retain heat was a decisive factor in promoting the growth of the fire”.

The inquiry said that the way in which Kingspan operated “created conditions that encouraged unethical practices in the supply of insulation for use on high-rise buildings”.

This is a company with blood on its hands.

When I wrote that last year in the Sunday Independent, a top Dublin PR firm got in touch to demand a right of reply. In it, Kingspan’s Aiveen Kearney said what I’d said “crosses a line”, and it was untrue for me to say it was a rotten business.

No doubt there are many good people who work for Kingspan. But this wasn’t, as the firm claims, the actions of a “few” employees; it was, as the inquiry found “systemic”.

Even now, protecting Kingspan’s reputation — and thus its ability to make money — is more important than facing the ugly truth of what it has done.

On Wednesday Ulster Rugby — which last year, in full knowledge of the Grenfell evidence, chose to extend Kingspan’s sponsorship — told the Belfast Telegraph: “We note the comments expressed by Sir Martin Moore-Bick in the Phase 2 report published today, along with its detailed findings. Our thoughts are with all those affected by the Grenfell Tower fire.

“As was announced at the beginning of the year, Kingspan’s sponsorship of Ulster Rugby will come to an end in June 2025, following an agreed 12-month transitionary period.”

Read that again. “We note the comments”. Really? “We note the comments”? After years to prepare, Ulster Rugby considers those achingly formulaic words appropriate.

I asked Ulster Rugby why that statement never went on its website or social media, and whether it had anything else to say about Kingspan’s behaviour. A spokesman said: “We have no further comment to make.”

This is more spineless than an earthworm.

Ulster Rugby is not alone. Irish golfer Shane Lowry is happy to take Kingspan’s cash, describing the company as “the global leader in high performance insulation”.

Cavan GAA and golfer Leona Maguire are also sponsored by Kingspan.

But Ulster is our team; I’ve stood in the stands and cheered them on.

A pessimist would say money has consumed sport and its damage is irreversible. But that’s only true if we accept it to be so.

Ulster Rugby is now looking for a new sponsor. If this is just about money rather than morality, can we expect The Pornhub Stadium?

Rugby is a great game, but like all sport, it’s only a game. Ulster wouldn’t collapse entirely without Kingspan, but even if it did, that’s incomparable to the deaths of 72 people.

No one could argue otherwise, but Ulster’s defenders try to minimise its involvement: Ulster didn’t kill anyone, Kingspan would have done this anyway, and there were multiple others responsible for Grenfell.

That’s all true. But Ulster Rugby has been and is part of not only sanitising Kingspan’s reputation, but promoting its products to supporters.

This wasn’t a private donation from Kingspan which enriched Ulster Rugby alone; this was a deal that benefited both. Ulster got cash; Kingspan got publicity.

Would Ulster Rugby’s contract with Kingspan even allow it to criticise the firm’s behaviour?

Maybe no gagging clause is necessary. It would make little sense to publicly express horror at the actions of a company that is bankrolling you.

Ulster Rugby has prostituted itself for cash.

It was happy to take money to present Kingspan to its own supporters as a reputable company making safe products which, by association, Ulster Rugby has been endorsing.

When, in 2014, Ravenhill was renamed the Kingspan Stadium — reportedly for about £4m — Ulster’s then chief executive Shane Logan said: “We have been proud to be associated with Kingspan for the past 15 years. We look forward to growing this relationship, helping to grow the success of the Kingspan brand.”

He praised Kingspan as “a company that fits well” with Ulster, praising its “ethical environmental products”.

To be fair to Logan, who left six years ago, there is no reason to believe he knew anything about Kingspan’s nefarious behaviour.

He, like the rest of us, was being deceived into believing this was a reputable business.

But that hasn’t been true for years. Moral deformity in business can pollute what ought to be a joyful game — and can lead to hellish deaths in an inferno fuelled by greed.

[jean valjean]

Mcbride is a big fish in a small pond here. I used to have time for him, but he's gone down the Nolan route with sensationalism being his preferred way of doing things. Whatever it takes to keep the tele afloat I suppose.

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[Jetstream]

Mcbride is a big fish in a small pond here. I used to have time for him, but he's gone done the Nolan route with sensationalism being his preferred way of doing things. Whatever it takes to keep the tele afloat I suppose.

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I didn't read the whole article. I suspect telereaders also gave up. Touch of gutter journalism.

[TheBoat]

What's the problem with that article? It's the truth.

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[justinr73]

Not sure how anyone could write “Ulster Rugby has prostituted itself for cash” and expect to be taken seriously.

Still, at least we get to find out his favourite porn site.

[horslips]

At the bottom of this pile is a complete and utter failure of of the regulatory system notably BRE, BBA and the tories under dangerous Dave and the drive to deregulate.