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Have we learned anything from shoddy Celtic Tiger building?

Building control authorities here have the full-time equivalent of just 58 officers. Ireland’s councils simultaneously employ 74 dog wardens

The Priory Hall complex in Dublin, from which residents were evacuated over fire-safety defects in October 2011. Photograph: Alan Betson
The Priory Hall complex in Dublin, from which residents were evacuated over fire-safety defects in October 2011. Photograph: Alan Betson
Lorcan Sirr
Sat Sept 28 2024 - 07:00

Structural faults, water ingress and fire-safety issues are prevalent across Ireland’s apartment blocks (and housing estates), leaving owners in the position of being unable to pay for repairs or even sell to anyone who needs a mortgage.

As Jade Wilson reported this week, this has a knock-on effect on the housing crisis, as when prospective homebuyers reliant on mortgages are losing out to cash buyers – mostly overseas investors. They are stuck in a moment and they can’t get out of it. But surely it can never happen again?

The fact we have such euphemistically termed “legacy issues” is a result of a laissez-faire quality control system of self-certification by the developers of houses and apartments. Builders were allowed to mark their own homework, and, surprisingly, they gave themselves top marks.

As a result the system of ensuring new buildings met minimum building regulation standards was changed in 2014. Known as BCAR, the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations were introduced by Phil Hogan when he was minister for the environment as a system of “reinforced self-certification”. Yes, more self-certification. (Note: Norway had already abandoned a similar system in 2010 as ineffective in protecting public safety or the building owner’s investment.)

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The current system operates on the basis that only an architect, building surveyor or engineer can certify a building as meeting building regulations. However, these “assigned certifiers” are employed by the owner. It is no reflection on their professionalism to say that being paid to mark their bosses’ homework may not be the most impartial method of ensuring buildings meet the required standards. Neither is the assigned certifier under an obligation to furnish any information about potential risks to the homebuyer or to the building control authority.

The building control authority is the local council whose building inspectors independently check construction projects on behalf of the State. They have an annual target to inspect 12-15 per cent of all new buildings (not just housing). In 2022 neither Mayo nor Sligo met that target, and several others hit it by the skin of their teeth. Dublin City Council is bringing the national average (29 per cent) up by increased inspection and enforcement.

Research by construction law barrister Dr Deirdre Ní Fhloinn found when construction issues arise enforcement is weak, mostly done on an informal basis, often via letters which have no legal status. Information on enforcement notices is not published on local authorities’ websites. Each council is obliged to maintain a public register of building enforcement activity, but they are guarded like secrets in Fatima, unlike the Food Safety Authority of Ireland which publishes the names of those found in regulatory breach. Enforcement is a key part of regulation.

An ideological predilection for limited intervention, light-touch rules in Britain and Ireland has meant regulation and building control activity has consistently been under-resourced.

In London the council’s building control officer in charge of Grenfell Tower admitted making critical errors in his assessment of the cladding works. Despite 31 years’ experience this was his first high-rise job. His team had been reduced to four – 230 years’ experience replaced with one graduate – and the workload increased commensurately. Seventy-two people died in the ensuing fire.

Building control authorities here have the full-time equivalent of just 58 officers, with 52 per cent not having a full-time officer. Nearly half the officers have no administration staff to support them. Ireland’s councils simultaneously employ 74 dog wardens.

The underfunding of building control authorities is happening as planning policy focuses on more complicated higher rise and density apartment development to solve the housing crisis. Overall housing output is up 128 per cent since 2017, 36 per cent of which (11,640) were apartments in 2023. Three-quarters of all new housing in Dublin county last year was apartments, and 94 per cent in Dublin city.

Under the influence of cynical lobbying safety standards in apartments were reduced in 2020. There can now be just one single escape route up to 20m (65ft) long from anywhere in an apartment, including any bedroom, to a safe place. There is no requirement to have a bedroom window suitable to escape through, nor to surround the kitchen with a firewall even though the structure may be of timber floors and walls.

Reacting to the changes in this newspaper, former RIAI president Eoin O’Cofaigh asked “have the officials lost their reason altogether?” That or regulatory capture. It’s not just in Ireland: according to Ní Fhloinn, across Europe governments are constantly pushing to reduce regulations for the building industry.

The government’s First Home shared equity scheme, where the government takes up to a 30 per cent stake in a purchaser’s new house or apartment, is silent on defects and who would pay for any remediation. The State is also funding the construction of thousands of new apartments each year for use as social housing (the policy of mixed tenure seemingly abandoned) yet cannot be certain that they are safe for future occupiers.

To pay for remediation projects across Irish housing the Government has allocated €5 billion of taxpayers’ money: €250 million for pyrite, €2.2 billion for mica and the rest for apartment defects. At the same time the State spends a paltry net €15 million a year on building control. The concept of prevention negating the need for a cure is clearly not understood.

The Report of the Building Standards Regulator Steering Group from July this year has rightly recommended the establishment of a building regulator to “strengthen the oversight” of the design and construction of buildings. Surprisingly, though, the report doesn’t reference the Hackitt or Grenfell reports which reviewed the UK building control system and led to their Building Safety Act 2022. We had previously ignored the Norwegian experience.

Improved transparency and accountability is essential. As when rats are found in a takeaway, construction miscreants need to be named and shamed. Public enforcement registers need to be genuinely public and available online. Protecting culprits does little for public confidence in a system already struggling with credibility.

The idea that safety is more important than quantity should not be a hard sell to policymakers, but the heady mix of poor standards, under-resourced authorities, weak enforcement and lobbying to reduce regulations means this expensive taxpayer-funded remediation scheme might not be the last.

Dr Lorcan Sirr is a senior lecturer in housing at the Technological University Dublin