“Nothing but empty promises and moved goal posts”

HOUSING MINISTER Darragh O’Brien has been accused of “dragging his heels” over emergency funding which was promised ten months ago.

Back in January the Minister announced, to much fanfare, that a redress scheme to repair up to 100,000 apartments and duplexes with fire safety and other defects would be set up.

He also said at the time that the details of the scheme, which could run to €2.5 billion, were still to be confirmed.

The affected apartment and duplex owners from Park West, Hunterswood and Ballycullen, formed an alliance called the ‘Not Our Fault’ campaign to fight to secure redress.

On February 22, Sam and Odette Doran, apartment owners from Park West and members of the ‘Not Our Fault’ campaign, had an in person meeting with Minister Darragh O Brien in his office (pictured above).

“He told them us that he had €2.5 billion, that the money was there he just needed to get a scheme in place to get the money out to people,” Odette Doran told Southside People.

“We discussed about insurance that we were about to lose our insurance because of fire defects we gave the Minister a copy of our insurance policy he said he would contact them we never heard another word.

“Our insurance used to be €38,000 and now it’s €192,000.

“He was going to get in touch with the banks and organise 0% finance on loans to carry out remediation works.

“We left the meeting telling everyone that help was on the way the Minister was busy he was going to sort everything how wrong we were.”

Now we are into November and still nothing has been done to help the local apartment owners.

“Up to date not one fire alarm has been delivered, not one emergency light has been delivered and not one safe exit has been provided out of a building,” Odette said.

“These were all supposed to be part of the emergency funding until the scheme was up and running.

“No help with insurance so nothing only empty promises and the goal posts moving all the time.

“He started off with emergency funding that changed to the hardship fund now it has changed to interim fire safety funding.

“He said he needed the Code of Practice to help implement the scheme in July 2023.

“The code of practice was released in our opinion this is 20 years too late as where was the code of practice for the builders when they were building.”

Odette and other members of the ‘Not Our Fault’ campaign have been outside the Dail on Kildare Street every Wednesday since March protesting.

They have emailed the Housing Minister every Monday with an update on behalf of the up to 100,000 affected homeowners throughout the country.

They have had a couple of webinars with the Minister which they say were “of little use” as they can’t engage in them.

This week they received a reply from his office that he had “nothing new to offer at this time.”

“We received an update from the construction defects alliance on Friday 27th of October saying that the application process would be open at the end of November,” Odette said.

“We were told at the last webinar that this would be open at for applying for funding at the end of October early November 2023 so it seems the Minister has nothing in place for this year.

The Crescent Building in Park West, one of the affected buildings with fire defects.

“He also said they hoped to have legislation for the scheme in spring 2024 so God knows when this scheme will be up and running and the implementation of the full redress scheme will probably have to fall on the next government who is in place to deal with it.

“So, in short, the Minister has done nothing for us but in turn what is happening to affected homeowners throughout the country is they are paying huge levies for something that is not their fault people are before the courts as they could not afford these huge levies most of these are pensioners that downsized thought they were doing the right thing, and then got hit with huge bills they simply could not afford.

“There are people who are sleeping with a fire extinguisher beside their bed living in fear of their own home some people don’t have a balcony so they are thinking of buying a rope ladder to get down to a floor with a balcony.

“People are staying in the same room as their children in case of a fire breaking out in a block that they can get out with their children peoples mental health has suffered some are on medication this is no way to live.

“And the best the government can say is it will fall to the next government for the implementation part of the scheme.

“In November 2018 the Minister was in Opposition and he was campaigning for this so this is nothing new to him but the lack of urgency on this from the Minister is frightening these are fire defects not a leak in a roof.”

Southside People contacted the Department of Housing for a comment in relation to this story but had not received a reply at the time of going to print.