Strengthen consumer protections - Building standards ignored

WHEN Volkswagen confirmed its tremendous deceit and recklessness last week an iconic brand, and probably a country too, suffered huge credibility damage. 

It would be amazing if the brand, and other brands in the VW stable, maintained their dominant market positions. Consumers have rightly expressed a huge sense of betrayal that a once respected business should cheat on essential environmental policing.

That sense of having been utterly betrayed must be very alive among the residents and owners at the Longboat Quay apartment complex in Dublin’s Docklands too, where it is believed that fire safety standards were not matched by the developer Bernard McNamara. It is estimated that residents face a bill of €18,000 each to make their homes safe.