The owners of defective Celtic Tiger-era apartments in two “pathfinder” developments in Dublin will have to wait again to have their homes fixed due to further delays in the State’s pilot remediation scheme.
The two sample developments were among four picked as “pathfinder projects” to have their fire safety defects fixed under the Interim Remediation Scheme (IRS) announced by former minister for housing Darragh O’Brien last year.
These two developments, believed to be located in north county Dublin, received grant approval letters at the end of 2024 for €11 million and €2 million respectively. They had expected to receive the money before Christmas so that work could commence early in 2025.
However, the works have now been delayed by a number of months after the Housing Agency on Thursday announced it received legal advice that the scheme is not fully compliant with national and EU procurement law.
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As a result, all applicants to the scheme will now have to publicly tender for contractors.
In a statement issued on Thursday the Housing Agency said it was “in the process of revising the IRS to ensure it aligns with EU and national public procurement requirements”.
“This work is being undertaken in collaboration with other state agencies, including the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Office of Government Procurement,” the statement said.
“Given the complexity of the matter and the number of actions required, it is anticipated that it will take some months to amend the process.”
The IRS opened for applications on December 11th, 2023, under the administration of the Housing Agency.
Its purpose was to fund urgent fire safety works while legislation was finalised for the full remediation of defective apartments and duplexes constructed between 1991-2013.
It is estimated that between 50-80 per cent of apartments and duplexes built between 1991-2013 may be affected by fire safety, structural safety or water ingress defects.
This equates to between 62,500 and 100,000 apartments/duplexes.
In January 2023 the Department of Housing estimated that the average cost of remediation as about €25,000 per unit, which means the scheme could have a potential cost to the exchequer of between €1.5 billion and €2.5 billion.
Almost 200 owners’ management companies (OMCs) have so far applied for this interim funding.
Four “pathfinder” developments were selected to progress for funding, in an effort to scope out potential teething issues with any such scheme on a broader scale.
Of those four developments, three of them had already tendered for contractors in line with the Housing Agency’s original guidance.
Pat Montague, spokesman for the Construction Defects Alliance, said on Thursday that many other applicants to the interim scheme had already appointed surveyors to assess the fire safety risks and were now being told to pause this work while the Department of Housing and the Housing Agency awaited further legal advice as to whether the appointment of those professionals would have to be retendered too.
“While we’re awaiting clarity on this issue, we have this morning written to the Minister for Housing, his officials and the Housing Agency for guarantees in writing that the additional costs incurred by OMCs due to the new tendering requirement will be fully and quickly covered by the State,” Mr Montague said.
“They have – at the very least – a moral obligation to do so as the applicants acted in good faith, on foot of strong encouragement by Government Ministers and in line with guidance from the Housing Agency.”
While the delays and additional costs were both “disappointing and frustrating”, Mr Montague said they “should help prevent similar delays for the applicant OMCs following on from the four pathfinder projects”.
