State Papers – Day One: Complaints about rogue developers to leader

FIANNA FÁIL rank and file complained to then taoiseach Charles Haughey about rogue developers — who were known party backers — abandoning unfinished housing estates.

Confidential files, just released, show a memo was passed around Government ministers in 1980 about the scourge of private developments being left uncompleted around the country.

The high-level missive drew attention to Fianna Fáil’s promise in its local election manifesto the year before to crackdown on cowboy builders and make them pay to put everything right.