Michael Clifford: Darragh O’Brien must fix political defects of past

The Housing Minister has some serious decisions to make in the near future: Will he continue to play hardball with stricken homeowners or is he willing to accept that they are entitled to proper justice?

Protesters at a demonstration in Dublin on June 15 to demand a 100% redress scheme for homes and properties affected by bricks contaminated with mica. 

The mica homeowners will know their fate by the end of the month. 

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has pledged that he will have news within weeks for those whose homes have been badly affected by the destructive mineral, mica, which was present in the concrete blocks used on the houses. 

How such blocks were deemed suitable for construction remains a mystery.

Thousands of homeowners — the list is growing by the week — down the western seaboard are affected. These lives have been upended and the minister will determine whether their stress will be eased by a government pledge to fully cover the cost of redress. 

So far, the government is playing hardball.

Tens of thousands of other homeowners whose homes were affected by fire safety defects were supposed to have some idea by now of how their stress is to be eased. 

The government set up a group to determine how these people should be assisted with their burden. Originally, provision was to be made in the forthcoming budget for some form of redress, but that doesn’t look likely now.

The homes in which they live were built under a regulatory regime that was a joke; thankfully, nobody has died in a fire since these issues began coming to light. 

So far, the government is taking a tough line in talks to determine the degree of redress to which these homeowners should be entitled. 

The government is taking this stance not because the politicians and public servants are cold and heartless. 

They are not indifferent to the plight of people who are in major distress through no fault of their own. 

No, these guardians of the public purse are viewing the bigger picture, wondering where the money will come from, what other services might have to be curtailed, and where it will all end. 

In this evaluation of the hierarchy of needs in the political arena, the real pain of human beings can be pushed aside, particularly if the affected people live far from the centre of power, as is the case with mica homeowners.

Paddy Diver, a homeowner from Donegal, empties a bag of mica-affected concrete he scraped from the walls of his home, during a protest outside the Dail in June by mica-affected homeowners from Mayo and Donegal seeking 100% redress for the faulty concrete in their homes. Picture: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

The hardball being played by the government in these instances is in complete contrast with the softball that was played when it came to putting a regulatory regime in place for the building of homes. 

Down through the decades the wishes of the construction industry were given primary focus when drafting laws to ensure that homes were properly built. 

Regulation can cost time and money. Builders saw it as an irritant. Sure, didn’t they have their own standards and what need was there for the state to be sticking its nose into the private business of building? Wouldn’t it all be grand?

The contrasting attitudes of successive governments to the building industry and those who have been victims of the worst of the industry is one theme running through a new book, Defects: Living With The Legacy Of The Celtic Tiger, by Eoin
Ó Broin, Sinn Féin spokesperson on housing.

The first half of the book deals with people whose lives have been impacted by having to either evacuate their home or live in it with the knowledge that it is potentially a dangerous building. 

This is not just a theoretical or fancy notion. 

A fire in Millfield Manor in Newbridge in 2015 saw a terrace of homes razed to the ground in half an hour, despite a design time for such an outcome of three hours. 

Six houses were destroyed in a devastating fire in 25 minutes at Millford Manor in Newbridge in County Kildare in 2015.  Photo Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Only luck ensured that nobody died that day. Afterwards it was discovered that there were major fire safety defects in the whole estate.

Ó Broin spoke to various homeowners who have had to live with the legacy of shoddy and dangerous work and a regulatory regime that was practically non-existent. 

Among those featured is Stephanie Meehan who had to be evacuated from Priory Hall in north Dublin in 2011 because the building was deemed unsafe.

Stephanie’s partner Fiachra Daly took his own life two years later at a time when there was still no resolution in sight for all of those who had been affected. 

During those years, the residents had repeatedly sought a meeting with the Environment Minister, but were told the minister “must respect the independence of the designated statutory authority and cannot interfere in individual cases”.

This was in sharp contrast to the relations that existed between the minister’s various predecessors, the department, and the construction industry. 

During the 1970s there were attempts to introduce statutory building regulations for the industry. At every point, these efforts were resisted. 

In 1981, the Stardust fire, in which 48 young people lost their lives, brought the issue to the fore again. The tribunal into the tragedy, Ó Broin points out, had many flaws but it did reference the absence of proper regulation.

The tribunal chairman, Judge Ronan Keane, wrote: “Had the express requirements of the Draft Building Regulation been enforced and observed, the consequences of the disaster might have been significantly diminished.”

Notwithstanding such a damning indictment, it took another nine years for legislation on regulations to pass through the Oireachtas. 

At every juncture, the hand of the construction industry could be seen, steering laws away from any kind of regulation that would be considered intrusive. 

There was precious little resistance to the general narrative, apart from that offered by a small contingent of Workers’ Party TDs. The outcome was a system of self-certification, enacted in law in 1990.

Sinn Fein housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin's book 'Defects: Living With The Legacy Of The Celtic Tiger' should be required reading for those who are making decisions today in the elected and permanent government. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

Just as light touch regulation in banking contributed hugely to the financial crash in 2008, so also was it central to the shoddy and dangerous building work for which thousands are now paying a major price.

The industry was perfectly correct to lobby and push to have its interests looked after. No sectoral group would do anything differently. 

The problem is that governments are elected to look after the interests of society as a whole, not just those who shout loudest or have the deepest pockets.

Ó Broin’s book should be required reading for those who are making decisions today in the elected and permanent government.

It provides an insight into how bad law can in the long run turn out to have some very serious consequences. 

It also illustrates how slavish compliance with the wishes of vested interests are going to impact adversely on other elements in society. And it details the fallout for real people who find their lives upended through no fault of their own.

Darragh O’Brien has some serious decisions to make in the near future. 

Will he continue to play hardball with stricken homeowners? Or is he willing to accept that stricken homeowners are entitled to proper justice? The coming weeks and months will be illuminating in that respect.