RESIDENTS who are being evacuated from a 19th century
flats complex because of fire safety fears have claimed Dublin City Council
failed to carry out significant maintenance on the building.
Tenants living in the Crampton Buildings in Temple Bar
were told by city council officials last week that they would be evacuated from
the complex because the buildings did not meet current fire safety
requirements.
Following the announcement residents criticised the
council for not addressing fire safety concerns before now.
Dublin City Council intends to evacuate all 40 or so
residents living at the social housing complex after it found that the bedrooms
in the flats could only be accessed through the living rooms. This created what
it described as an
“inner room
? which contravened fire safety regulations.
The council also said the electrical wiring and
plumbing in the flats needs to be upgraded. It is estimated that these works
will take a total of two years and cost approximately
?¬2.8 million.
However, the council has offered to rehouse the
residents living in the 36 flats in two new apartment blocks, at Bridgefoot
Street and Townsend Street, while the work on the protected building is
underway.
Mary King, a 51-year-old widow who has lived at
Crampton Buildings since 1985, said residents were angry, as the council had
not addressed a range of concerns regarding the safety of the building they had
raised in the past.
“Nobody wants the building condemned but many of us
would have been expecting that because of the state of disrepair and lack of
maintenance,
? she said.
Ms King claimed that despite raising her own fire
safety concerns with the council on several occasions since November 2010 the
local authority hadn’t addressed them.
Caroline Caffrey (47), who has lived at the Crampton Buildings
all her life, said she was shocked that the council had failed previously to
warn tenants about the fire safety hazard posed by the inner rooms in the
flats.
She also claimed that raw sewage had been leaking from
pipes connected to residents’ toilets and spilling down onto a communal
courtyard at the complex since last year.
“Things like these inner rooms were never mentioned to
us,
? she said.
“They should have warned us about the danger years ago.
?
“Last summer Cllr Mannix Flynn (Ind) got the council
one Sunday to come out as quick as they could to clean it all up. It was all
over the place. There is still a big hole in the pipe, there is dirt everywhere
and they haven’t come out to fix it since.
?
A spokesperson for the council said they had a unique
opportunity to offer residents in Crampton Buildings alternative high quality
accommodation for the estimated two years that the refurbishment work will
take.
“Given the extent of the internal and external
refurbishment needed to bring the building to the required standards and to the
constrained nature of the complex, it would be impractical to have these works
carried out with the residents in situ,
? a spokesperson said.
“We will be available to liaise with individual
residents to establish their housing needs and about when and how and to where
they will move while the refurbishment process is underway. We will be flexible
with people and will try to use the opportunity that the two new empty apartment
blocks nearby give us to rehouse neighbours together, if that is what they
would like.
?