On the 2nd of January, after the New Years celebrations had died down, the people of Belfast were collectively reminded of an atrocity which occurred over 5 years ago. It was discovered that the home of Irish rugby club Ulster Rugby, the Ravenhill Stadium, whose 100th anniversary will be celebrated this year, had been vandalised, with the sole word 'Grenfell' covering the entrance to the sports ground. 

Despite the Grenfell Tower disaster of June 2017 taking place over 400 miles away from Northern Ireland, the reason for the graffiti, the culprit of which still yet to be unmasked, soon became clear.

On the 5th of June 2014, Irish building materials company Kingspan signed a 10 year deal with Ulster for the rights to the name of the stadium for the following 10 years. And in November 2020, after the inquiry into Grenfell tower's downfall, it was revealed by Kingspan's former technical director Ivor Meredith that Kingspan had provided 5% of the insulation, which made up the cladding of Grenfell tower, which, due to the complacency of its safety testing, catalysed fire's spread. 

This negligence for proper procedure has clearly been a longstanding issue within the company, well before the travesty created by the company's 'Kooltherm K15' that deadly night in North Kensington. In this report around the end of 2020, yet more damning evidence was released to the public, with the director of the entire company Philip Heath berating company consultants in 2008, as the concerns over the safety of some of Kingspan's most popular and affordable products continued to rise to the fore. Furthermore, just days before the aforementioned hearing was set to take place, top executives with the company withdrew nearly £7 million in company shares, as the Kingspan stock price crumbled by 15% following the excruciating trial.

The Kingspan Group arguably have blood on their hands, but their shortcomings are nothing out of the ordinary, with other major cladding manufacturers, such as Mullalley, facing litigation due to their involvement in poor safety procedure and their disapproval of cutting a small slice out of their £175 million 2016 net turnover for the sake of the homeowners.  

Despite legislation such as the ban on flammable cladding for all residential and office buildings above 18m, passed in September 2018, there are many companies still operating today who set their moral obligations aside and strive to poke loopholes in the law.