Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

No. My understanding is the building is not new but a conversion of an existing building. We had all seen works happening but they related to a conversion. It came to our attention in the first instance because housing applicants in South Dublin County Council's list wanted to take up regular tenancies and applied for the housing assistance payment, HAP. When they applied for that, South Dublin County Council, in doing due diligence, checked the building and at that point realised there was no completion certificates. At that point a planning concern was raised. The Bord Pleanála decision was pending so people were taking a relatively sensible approach, waiting for that to come out, and it came out last week. The difficulty is it does not look like any of the 44 units are built in compliance with the 2016 planning approval. I have had conversations with planning officials and I am trying to find my way around them. Some units may be in compliance with the approval.

Under the enforcement regulations, South Dublin County Council has written to the developer and has given 28 days to reply. We will have to wait and see whether the individual applies for retention or amended retention. The difficulty is that as of last week, when the residents found out, they had assumed they would be on the street within hours and there was a degree of panic. We have done much work to reassure them but there are complicating factors in the sense that people are from multiple local authorities, including some outside of Dublin. Some people are not on housing lists but could be. That is a process that must be looked at. At least ten of the households have notices to quit because their HAP applications were refused. I know that is one of the issues that will be discussed at the meeting tomorrow.

There are people there from the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive homeless placefinder service and they need some reassurance that if they identify alternative private rental accommodation in the upcoming period, they can transfer the homeless HAP and deposit into the new properties. That is technically not permissible under normal rules but they clearly do not apply. We also have five or six private rent pairs who have paid considerable sums - in some cases, a deposit of three months and rent in advance - and they are now wondering if they will get those deposits back. Threshold representatives were at the meeting last night to advise those residents. It is very complicated. If the local authorities that might have some tangential involvement is not at the meeting tomorrow, correspondence should be forwarded to it. I spoke to Marguerite in the HAP section of the Department today about that. If staff at the front line of local authorities are apprised of this as quickly as possible, individuals ringing in could be given advice relevant to this situation rather than the standard policy advice. We do not want much confusion in an already difficult set of circumstances.