Minister for the Enviroment Alan Kelly has stated that he expects that fire safety deficiencies identified at the Longboat Quay apartment complex in Dublin have been replicated elsewhere.
Hundreds of residents at Longboat Quay face eviction from their homes in the following weeks and bills of up to €18,000 each (€4 million in total) to fix fire-safety deficiencies in the Dublin docklands development.
Minister Kelly warned that similar problems will be identified elsewhere, including at one as yet unnamed development in Co Kildare.
Blaming insufficient regulation in the past, Minister Kelly insisted that the Government has since improved legislation, however the contractor who built the Longboat Quay complex as well as many other developments, Bernard McNamara will not face any justice or have to pay any fines despite the desperation and pain he has caused the residents who may soon be homeless.
But the Royal Institute of Architects is warning that current building regulations do not provide adequate oversight and will not ensure these problems will be avoided in the future.
It is calling on Minister Kelly to introduction of mandatory independent third party inspections, a statutory register of builders, and increased resourcing for local authorities.
Minister Kelly also said he is prepared to bring in emergency legislation to speed up planning for modular housing units in Dublin if they are required.
However he said it is unlikely that he will need to introduce this legislation as he said everything was being done to help people who need emergency accommodation, despite the fact that there are still families sleeping on Dublin streets.
He said he aims to have “a certain amount” of modular units before Christmas.
In the meantime Ruth Coppinger TD and multiple homeless families in Dublin are currently occupying one of thousands of vacant NAMA owned properties which the state refuse to use as emergency houses.