Estate where six houses burned down excluded from defective homes scheme

The remains of the six terraced houses in Millfield Manor, Newbridge.  Picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin. 

An estate where six houses were burnt to the ground due to fire safety defects is not to be included in the remediation scheme for defective homes.

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has brought details to the cabinet of the €2.5bn remediation scheme for up to 100,000 apartments built during Celtic Tiger years. 

Yet the estate where the dangers to human life were exposed through fire safety defects will not benefit because it is made up of terraced houses rather than apartments or duplexes.

On March 31, 2015, a terrace of six houses in Millfield Manor in Newbridge was completely devastated by fire in half an hour. 

By design standards, it should have taken three hours for the fire to spread and escalate. 

Subsequently, Kildare County Council conducted an investigation but refused to publish the report and only allowed residents of the estate to view it under supervision.

The fire prompted further action that led to an Oireachtas committee preparing a report Safe As Houses and the establishment of the Construction Defects Alliance, which lobbied strongly for a remediation scheme on the basis that the State was culpable because of major shortcomings in the building inspection regime.

“We filled out the forms to apply for the scheme but it turns out that it’s only for apartments and duplexes,” Wayne Proctor, chair of Millfield Manor’s residents association, said.

“So we’re left out. No State agency whatsoever has come in and said they would assist us. We are being left completely on our own to address these defects that are dangerous.”