Sir, – Twelve months ago this week 256 residents of Priory Hall, including 87 children, were given 48 hours to pack up their lives and leave the place they had called home for the previous four years. They were told they could return to their homes within five weeks. They did not. One year on Priory Hall has, if anything, further deteriorated.
What has ensued for the residents has been a 12-month battle with the developer Tom McFeely, Dublin City Council, the Government and the banks.
It is not a fight the residents asked for, nor is it one they welcomed: they have been forced into it.
I believe that Priory Hall, is at its essence, a failure of the State.
It was central government that passed the now infamous “self-certification”. Local authorities, which collected huge sums by way of development levies, chose not to carry out building inspections, regardless of whatever warning signs there may have been. Many builders constructed sub-standard homes in the knowledge that they were unlikely to be held accountable.
Many people have commented that Priory Hall stands as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Celtic Tiger and the building boom. They are correct.
However, it is also a symbol of modern Ireland. An Ireland without accountability. Responsibility is for somebody else to take.
Tom McFeely, the builder of Priory Hall, has walked free of all responsibility. A three-month prison sentence and €1 million fine handed down by the High Court was overturned in the Supreme Court last July. The residents of Priory Hall are left bearing the burden for his failures.
The building control authority, Dublin City Council, has compounded the distress for the residents through its actions. It had the statutory powers to carry out inspections during construction but failed to do so; and although it was the council which sought the evacuation, it has attempted to absolve itself of responsibility at every step. On ordering the evacuation, the President of the High Court insisted that the council provide temporary accommodation to the discommoded residents. This was done over the vocal objections of the council. It has appealed this to the Supreme Court.
The consequence of this is that young families have been dragged through the courts for the past year, as the council seeks to remove the one safety net the residents have.
The Government has conducted itself no better. It has sought to avoid engaging in Priory Hall at every step. Twelve months on, the residents have still not met Minister for Environment Phil Hogan, the minister responsible for building standards. He has given a catalogue of excuses for not meeting the residents.
Residents, justifiably worried about huge mortgages on dangerous homes, wrote to the Minister for Finance to ask for help and advice on how to handle the significant problems they were facing with their banks.
In his response, Mr Noonan referred families to the personal insolvency and bankruptcy legislation due to be passed in the current Dáil term. I have followed with interest media reports on what the banks believe a family should live on when in insolvency. I have heard Minister for Justice Alan Shatter’s comments that citizens may be required to sell the family jewellery to pay the banks. I have lain awake at night worrying if this is how it will end. Must my wife give up her wedding and engagement ring to satisfy the bank for a debt on a home we cannot live in and cannot hope to repay? Will we lose what little we have left?
This cannot be the end result for the residents of Priory Hall. I believe that over the last 12 months they have at all times been reasonable and dignified in the face of considerable stress and adversity.
Mr Noonan’s suggestions, however, are a bridge too far. I cannot accept that this can be allowed to happen in modern Ireland; that blameless homeowners may be left paying the ultimate price for the failures of others. A solution to Priory Hall can and must be found. – Yours, etc,