Substandard developments: Meath County Council silent on firetrap building

A statement issued by Meath County Council in response to yesterday’s Irish Examiner article about a firetrap block of apartments in Ratoath has failed to address the serious issues raised.

The Irish Examiner yesterday reported that the council has failed to act on a damning engineer’s report it received last July, which showed that the block of 26 units in Riverwalk Court was entirely deficient in terms of fire safety.

The council had failed to address a series of questions put to it by this newspaper eight days ago about whether it had conducted an inspection of the block, and why it had not informed residents as to whether or not their livers were in danger.

Yesterday, the council said it is in “ongoing contact with the developer through the offices of its fire service and has been closely monitoring the situation regarding Riverwalk Court for some time”.

READ MORE: MICHAEL CLIFFORD: Council leaves residents languishing in a fire trap.

It went on: “Meath County Council’s fire services representatives met the developer and his legal representatives on June 3 to clarify the current impasse in relation to the developer and their representatives gaining access to the property to address any fire safety issues that may exist.”

The council added a meeting was being arranged with the residents for June 22.

A spokesman for the residents, Mark Fitzmaurice, said they have never denied access to anybody to the building.

“We haven’t even had any request for access,” he said.

“As for the council, we’ve been talking to them since we made them aware of these problems in 2011 so I can’t understand why they want a meeting now.

“We sought a meeting last year with the new county manager but we didn’t get it. However, we’ll meet them anytime. We’re desperate to move this on.”

The statement from the council failed to address whether or not an inspection of the premises was conducted by its fire service department, and why, if any report was compiled, the residents were not informed as to whether or not they were living in an unsafe building.

The questions put to the council which have not been addressed include:

• Has a fire safety inspection report been compiled in relation to Riverwalk Court?
• If so, why have the residents not been informed of the report’s conclusions?
• If no inspection report has been compiled, why not?
• Has any consideration been given to contacting residents under Sections 19 and 20 of the Fire Services Act on the basis that the development poses a risk to safety?
• Is the chief fire officer satisfied there is no reason to revoke the fire safety certificate for the development, and that there is no risk to the residents as a result of deficiencies or shortcomings in the construction of the units vis-à-vis fire safety?

Riverwalk Court has been the subject of ongoing controversy since defects were first discovered in 2007.

Currently, the defects insurance company Premier is undertaking remedial work on site primarily concerned with water ingress and other defects. It is unclear whether this work covers the deficits in fire safety in the building.

READ MORE: MICHAEL CLIFFORD: Council leaves residents languishing in a fire trap.