Huge numbers of Celtic Tiger apartments may be affected by fire defects, housing committee hears

Defects in Celtic Tiger-era apartments in Ireland risk a Grenfell Tower-type fire tragedy, in which 72 people were killed in London in 2017. Picture: Steve Parsons/PA Wire

Up to 100,000 apartments constructed in Ireland during the Celtic Tiger era could be affected by fire defects, fire-safety experts have estimated.

The potential repair cost could run into billions of euro.

A meeting of the Dáil's housing committee, this morning, heard that a comprehensive assessment of such fire defects  has yet to be carried out, but experts say issues have been identified in many of the 131,000 apartments built in the State between 2000 and 2008.

Kath Cottier, director of housing services with housing association, Clúid, and chair of the Construction Defects Alliance (CDA), said that while fire defects continue to be found in properties built since 2008, the majority of issues are in Celtic Tiger-era properties.

"From a health-and-safety point of view, this is an appalling vista," Ms Cottier said. "We can’t continue with a hear-no-evil, see-no-evil approach to the issue of fire and other defects."  

"We don’t even have to mention Grenfell Tower to see where that road leads to," she said, citing the high-rise tragedy in London in June 2017, which killed 72 people.

"We simply don’t know how many are affected by defects," Ms Cottier said, adding that fire engineer Eamon O'Boyle had warned, earlier in 2020, that "fire safety of apartments is one of the many legacy issues faced by government and it cannot be long-fingered until there is a tragedy".

Mr O'Boyle had provided the estimates, Ms Cottier said, that 75% of the Celtic Tiger-era apartments sported fire defects, the majority of which are not visible to a layman, at a potential remediation cost of between €5,000 and €60,000 per unit, "with €15,000 seeming to be the median cost".

Meanwhile, Ms Cottier said, the majority of buildings with fire defects have yet to be inspected, as the Government opted, post-Grenfell, to only survey buildings of 18m in height and greater, excluding the majority of apartments. 

Her pronouncements were met with broad agreement from the housing committee, whose predecessor had produced a report, 'Safe As Houses?', in 2017, calling for widespread construction reform.

Ms Cottier said that the chief aim of the CDA is the implementation of the recommendations of that report.

Fine Gael TD Emer Higgins stated that she is absent from her own apartment, which she rents, as it is being renovated to redress fire defects, the cost of which "is falling on my neighbours and landlords, and that’s wrong".

Independent Limerick TD Richard O'Donoghue said that he "welcomes" the pronouncements of the CDA, speaking from experience as a construction contractor. He mentioned a constituent who "can’t sleep at night" because of known defects in his apartment building, which houses a car park beneath the residences.

"What happens if one of those cars goes on fire?" Mr O'Donoghue said.

Ms Cottier said that cheap loan finance for owners and landlords is not an appropriate remedy. 

"Debt is not the answer. The owners have done nothing wrong," she said.

While such low-interest or interest-free loans "would ease the cash-flow pressure on owner-management companies and owners", they would still leave the owners 100% on the hook for remediating defects they did not in any way cause, Ms Cottier said.

The stress of such a financial burden is "huge", she said. She said that many people who have opted to repair their own home "are struggling to pay their levies".

She called, instead, for a redress scheme, similar to that used with regard to housing issues caused by mica and pyrite.

She said that any fund should  recompense owners who have already "done the right thing" and paid to fix defects in their properties. She said that it is "crucial" that the Government's proposed working group on legacy defects meet its review timeframe deadline of July 2021.