A new report commissioned by the Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien TD has found that between 50 and 80 percent of apartments and duplexes built between 1991 and 2013 are affected by one or more safety defects.
These defects relate to fire safety, structural safety, and water ingress.
In Fingal, which is Minister O’Brien’s constituency, 14,000 apartments and duplexes were constructed during this time period.
“Upon becoming Minister for Housing, one of the first things I did was start the process of establishing the independent working group,” he said.
“I have always believed this was a nettle we needed to grasp and that we need to help the people who are impacted, many of whom live here in North County Dublin.
“I would like to sincerely thank the working group who have conducted a significant amount of work over the past year and a half and who have provided me with a detailed report which identifies and evaluates the scope and scale of the issue and proposes recommendations.
“It’s a very substantial report, at more than 230 pages, and I will consider it along with my Government colleagues.
“We are committed to finding a path forward and to helping the people who have been impacted by these defects,” he said.
Minister O’Brien said that the Government is currently working safeguards to ensure similar failures in the construction process do not reoccur.
“Many people are rightly asking how we are ensuring that issues like these never happen again,” he said.
“Government is committed to its Building Control Reform Agenda, which is focused on reform of the building control process, the National Building Control Management Project, and putting the Construction Industry Register Ireland on a statutory footing.
“This report is only the starting point, we have much more to do and will not delay in doing it,” he said.
According to the report, the cost of remedial works ranges from €1.56 to €2.5 billion and as many as 100,000 homes are estimated to be impacted.
The working group has recommended that a State-funded remediation scheme be “fully considered from a policy and cost perspective”.
The group concluded that there was no single cause for the defects.
“They tend to arise due to a variety of design, product, supervision, inspection and workmanship issues, occurring either in isolation or in various combinations. This position was replicated throughout the country,” the report notes.