Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tens of thousands of homeowners throughout the country are faced with the prospect of having to find large sums of money to pay for essential remediation works on homes and apartments that have a range of structural defects, including fire safety issues, with either poorly installed or no fire stopping with fire resistant materials in openings or joints between walls and floors, water ingress leading to leaky roofs and water running down the inside of windows leading to mould and dampness in rooms. Campaign groups have estimated that as many as 100,000 homeowners living in homes constructed between 1991 and 2013 are affected by a range of defects that will require urgent repair and refurbishment. It is also estimated that up to 90,000 residences are affected by fire safety defects. In this time of economic uncertainty and a cost-of-living crisis, who would be able readily to find the huge sums being demanded to fix problems not of residents' making?

In my constituency of Dublin North-West, some newly built homes constructed as part of the Ballymun regeneration project in Owensilla, Silloge and parts of the Carton area, suffered damage caused by the defective building material pyrite. A total of 274 houses and apartments in these developments were found to be defective and most of these have been remediated by Dublin City Council. In some cases, the State's regulatory regime allowed errant behaviour by developers who built poor-quality residences. This proved costly to both the State and the council, which had to shoulder the cost to correct these defects.

We are in a housing emergency but 58 apartments in the Prospect Hill complex in Finglas have been lying idle for more than 15 years. Construction began in 2004 on council-owned land. The builders entered into an agreement with Dublin City Council to supply it with 150 affordable homes and 35 senior citizen apartments. Those builders went into receivership in 2012. In 2014, repairs and refurbishment were to be carried out by Clúid, which was to begin allocating the apartments to families. These apartments are still lying idle and were later found to be non-compliant with fire safety standards. In recent years, they have been transferred to Dublin City Council. Area E, the Dublin City Council area in which they are located, has a huge housing waiting list and a homeless problem. It is beyond belief that these apartments continue to be vacant.

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