No guarantee that Longboat Quay will be the last debacle

No guarantees can be given that we won't see a repetition of the Longboat Quay situation because the current building regulations – implemented by former minister for the environment Phil Hogan – are not adequate to ensure that new buildings actually comply with them.

Introduced against the backdrop of Priory Hall, the apartment complex in north Dublin that had to be evacuated due to serious fire risks, the amended regulations provide for certification of compliance on completion by an architect, structural engineer or chartered surveyor.

But Vivian Cummins, a Co Carlow-based architect and critic of the new regime, warned yesterday there were “hundreds, if not thousands, of apartments in a similar situation” to Longboat Quay, with “serious problems” which have yet to be discovered.

It is believed the four Dublin local authorities are surveying private-sector apartment blocks in which they bought units for social housing, to determine whether they comply with the regulations, and that the results are not encouraging.

In the case of Longboat Quay, it is understood the apartment block completed in 2006, at the height of the property boom, was certified by an architect employed directly by the developer, Bernard McNamara; a foreign national, he is no longer in the jurisdiction.

Longboat Quay is a mix of private and social and affordable housing. Purchasers who had to have a survey carried out to satisfy their bank or building society would have found the surveyor’s “opinion on compliance” was confined to a visual inspection.

Diligence

“If, say, you were buying apartment 21, the scope of such a survey would be limited to the internal face of the external wall,” one architect explained. Thus, there would be no question of opening up walls to see whether service ducts, for example, were “fire-protected”.

And since “opinion on compliance” surveys would not include the common areas of an apartment building – entrance hall, stairs, lobbies, and so on – all that any purchaser of an apartment in Longboat Quay could rely on was the certificate signed by McNamara’s in-house architect.

It was only due to the diligence of one surveyor, who had been engaged by a prospective purchaser, that defects in the building came to light.

And these were so serious that he made a report to Dublin City Council that couldn't be ignored by its fire safety officers.

In the past, before 1990, Dublin Corporation (as it then was) had a whole building bylaw department, whose officials would regularly inspect drains and foundations being laid, walls and roofs being erected, to ensure everything complied.

But the building bylaws were superseded by the building regulations, a national set of rules that laid down standards about how apartments, houses and commercial buildings should be built to guard against fire and other risks as well as to provide “universal access”.

Enforcement

There was a rebellion within the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland over its role in agreeing to the new regime, with several former presidents arguing that it would do nothing to protect consumers – the people who buy houses or apartments.

The rebels called for the establishment of an insurance scheme that would cover latent defects – within, say, a 10-year period of any building’s completion – so that purchasers would have some recourse to funding for remedial works, if such works were deemed necessary.

However, although there is widespread agreement that latent defects insurance would deal with the dire situation faced by Longboat Quay residents, discussions are continuing among the professional bodies, and between them and the Department of the Environment.

The department’s determination to avoid any public liability for building defects by not having an independent inspection regime – overseen by local authority professional staff and funded by increased fees to cover the cost – lies at the root of the Priory Hall and Longboat Quay issues.

“We have excellent building regulations. The problem is to do with enforcement,” Mr Cummins said.

“Here you have people who’ve made the biggest investment of their lives and now their property is unsaleable.

“They’d have more protection buying a washing machine.”