Structural defects, dampness and fire hazards are common problems in apartment buildings and residential estates across Ireland. This results in owners being incapable of affording the cost of repairs or of selling to any buyers who require a mortgage. It’s been noted by Jade Wilson this week that this indirectly worsens the housing crisis. This is because prospective homeowners who depend on mortgages are often outbid by cash purchasers – usually international investors. They find themselves trapped in a challenging situation with seemingly no way out. The question remains, could this happen again?
The existence of these so-called “legacy issues” are largely due to an ineffective quality control system where the developers of houses and flats were allowed to self-certify. Ironically, developers largely graded their own work highly. It led to a change in the system in 2014 for ensuring new constructions satisfied the basic building regulation standards. This was when Phil Hogan, who was then minister for the environment, introduced the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations, or BCAR, as a strengthened form of self-certification. This was despite Norway discarding a similar system in 2010 due to its ineffectiveness in safeguarding public safety or property owners’ investments.
The current system allows only an architect, building surveyor or engineer, employed by the owner, to certify that a building meets the regulatory standards. Despite their professionalism, having these “assigned certifiers” evaluate the work of their employer may not be the most unbiased way of ensuring that buildings comply with the necessary standards. Furthermore, the assigned certifier is not required to provide any information about potential risks to either the homebuyer or the building control authority.
The local council, acting as the building control authority, conducts autonomous evaluations of construction projects for the State. Annually, they aim to inspect between 12-15% of all new constructions, not just residential properties. In 2022, both Mayo and Sligo fell short of this goal, while several others only just met it. Increased inspection and enforcement efforts from Dublin City Council have lifted the national average to 29%.
Investigations by Dr Deirdre Ní Fhloinn, a construction law barrister, demonstrated that enforcement when construction problems occur tends to be weak, usually occurring on an informal basis, often through unofficial letters. The public cannot find information about these enforcement notices on local councils’ websites. Each council is legally required to keep a public record of building enforcement activity, but they guard this information closely, contrasting sharply with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, who publicly list those found in violation of regulations. Enforcement is a crucial component of regulation.
In the UK and Ireland, a bent towards minimised intervention and a lighter regulatory touch has resulted in the constant under-resourcing of both regulation and building control activity. In London, the council’s building control officer who oversaw Grenfell Tower admitted crucial mistakes in evaluating the cladding works there. Despite 31 years of experience, this was his first tall building task. His team had been reduced to just four members – a graduate replaced 230 years of combined experience – and work duties grew significantly. The subsequent fire tragically took 72 lives.
The staffing of building control authorities is inadequate, with only 58 officers full-time or equivalent, and over half of these entities do not have a single full-time officer. Administration staff is absent in nearly 50% of these cases, while there are 74 dog wardens employed by Ireland’s councils.
This scarcity of funds for building control authorities coincides with planning policies that emphasise complex, high-density apartment developments to alleviate the housing shortage. Since 2017, total housing production has risen by a considerable 128%, with apartments accounting for 36% (11,640) in 2023. Last year, apartments made up 75% of new housing in Dublin county, and a staggering 94% in Dublin city.
Owing to sardonic manipulation and lobbying, the safety requirements for flat dwellings were lessened in 2020. Presently, there’s only one needed escape path up to 20 metres long from any point in a flat, extending to all bedrooms, towards a secure area. There is no obligation for a bedroom window to be large enough for an exit, or for a firewall to enclose the kitchen, despite the possibility of wooden walls and flooring.
The UK government’s First Home equity share scheme, where the government invests up to 30% in a buyer’s new home or apartment, doesn’t address possible building faults or who is responsible for covering the repair costs. Additionally, the state funds the building of thousands of new flats annually for social housing use, despite deviating from mixed tenure policy, and with no guarantee of residents’ safety.
For numerous remediation works in Irish residences, the government has assigned €5 billion of taxpayers’ funds: €250 million for pyrite, €2.2 billion for mica, and the remaining for flat defects. Conversely, the state grants a meagre net €15 million annually on building control, with a clear misunderstanding of the principle of “prevention over cure”.
The Building Standards Regulator Steering Group report from July of this year aptly endorsed the creation of a building regulator to enhance the supervision of building design and construction processes. However, it fails to mention the Hackitt or Grenfell reviews which analysed the UK’s building control system, leading to the consequent Building Safety Act of 2022. We had previously overlooked the Norwegian model.
Heightened transparency and responsibility are of utmost importance. Much like how infestations in a food outlet are handled, wrongdoers in construction must be exposed and held accountable. Public enforcement registers must be made widely accessible and posted online. Shielding culprits undermines public trust in an already shaky system.
The concept of prioritising safety over quantity should be easily advocated by decision-makers. However, the dangerous cocktail of inferior standards, underfunded local bodies, lax enforcement, and lobbying for laxer regulations could mean that this costly taxpayer-funded remediation scheme may not be the last of its kind.
Dr Lorcan Sirr is a respected senior lecturer on housing at Technological University Dublin.