Landlords continue to pay for Celtic Tiger’s shoddy standards, but have we learned the lesson? – The Irish Times.

Structural defects, water ingress and fire safety problems are common in Irish apartment blocks (and housing estates), leaving owners unable to pay for repairs or even sell to anyone who needs a mortgage.

As Jade Wilson reported this week, this is causing a domino effect on the housing crisis as potential home buyers with mortgage debt lose out to cash buyers – mainly foreign investors. They are stuck in one moment and can’t get out of it. But are you sure this can never happen again?

The fact that we are dealing with such euphemistically called “heritage problems” is due to the laissez-faire quality control system of self-certification used by house and apartment developers. The builders were allowed to grade their own homework and, surprisingly, they gave themselves the highest marks.

As a result, in 2014 the system for ensuring that new buildings meet minimum building regulation standards was changed. The Building Control Regulations (Amendment), known as BCAR, was introduced by Phil Hogan when he was Environment Minister as a system of “enhanced self-financing”. case law.” Yes, more self-certification. (Note: Norway abandoned a similar system back in 2010, deeming it ineffective in protecting public safety or the building owner’s investment.)

The current system works on the basis that only an architect, building inspector or engineer can determine that a building complies with building regulations. However, these “assigned certifiers” are employed by the owner. It is not a testament to their professionalism to say that paying for supervisors to grade homework may not be the most impartial method of ensuring that buildings meet the required standards. The designated certifier also has no obligation to provide the home buyer or the building control authority with any information about potential hazards.

The construction supervision authority is the local government, whose building inspectors independently inspect construction projects on behalf of the state. Their annual goal is to inspect 12-15 percent of all new buildings (not just residential). In 2022, neither Mayo nor Sligo have achieved this target, with several others hitting it right on target. Dublin City Council is raising the national average (29 per cent) through increased inspections and enforcement.

Research by construction law lawyer Dr Deirdre Ní Fhloinn has shown that when construction problems arise, enforcement is weak and takes place mainly informally, often through letters without legal status. Information about enforcement orders is not published on local authority websites. Each council is required to keep a public register of building enforcement activities, but these are guarded like Fatima secrets, unlike the Irish Food Safety Authority, which publishes the names of those found in breach of the regulations. Enforcement is a key part of regulation.

The ideological preference for limited intervention and lenient rules in the UK and Ireland means that resources for building regulation and control are persistently underfunded.

In London, the building inspector responsible for Grenfell Tower admitted making critical errors in assessing façade work. Despite 31 years of experience, it was his first job in a skyscraper. His team was reduced to four people – 230 years of experience replaced by one graduate – and the workload increased proportionately. Seventy-two people died as a result of the fire.

Building control authorities here employ just 58 full-time officers, with 52 percent not having a full-time officer. Almost half of the officers have no support from administrative staff. The Irish authorities employ 74 dog handlers at any one time.

Underfunding of building regulators occurs because planning policies focus on more complex housing developments with higher heights and densities to solve the housing crisis. Overall housing production has increased by 128% since 2017, of which 36% (11,640) were apartments in 2023. Three-quarters of all new housing in County Dublin last year was apartments, with 94% in Dublin.

Under the influence of cynical lobbying, safety standards in apartments were lowered in 2020. Currently, there can only be one escape route of up to 20m from any point in the home, including any bedroom, to a safe place. There is no requirement to have a bedroom window through which you can escape, or to enclose a firewall around the kitchen, even if the structure may have wooden floors and walls.

Reacting to this newspaper’s changes, former RIAI president Eoin O’Cofaigh asked: “Have officials completely lost their minds?” That or regulatory capture. It’s not just Ireland: according to Ní Fhloinn, governments across Europe are constantly pushing to reduce regulation of the construction industry.

The government’s First Home equity program, under which the government takes up to 30 percent equity in a buyer’s new home or apartment, is silent on defects and who will pay for any remediation. The state also finances the construction of thousands of new apartments each year for social housing (the policy of mixed tenancy has apparently been abandoned), but there is no certainty that they are safe for future tenants.

The government has allocated €5 billion of taxpayers’ money to pay for Irish residential remediation projects: €250 million for pyrite, €2.2 billion for mica and the rest for housing defects. At the same time, the state spends a paltry €15 million a year on building inspections. The concept of prevention negating the need for treatment is not clearly understood.

The report of the Steering Group on the Regulation of Building Standards in July this year rightly recommends the establishment of a building control authority to “strengthen supervision” of the design and construction of buildings. Surprisingly, however, the report does not refer to the Hackitt or Grenfell reports, which reviewed the UK’s building control system and led to the passage of the Building Safety Act 2022. We have previously ignored Norway’s experience.

Greater transparency and accountability are essential. As with the rats found in the takeaway, construction villains need to be named and shamed. Public law enforcement records must be truly public and available online. Protecting perpetrators has little effect on public trust in a system that already has credibility problems.

The idea that safety is more important than quantity shouldn’t be hard to convince policymakers, but a striking mix of poor standards, underfunded authorities, weak enforcement and lobbying for reduced regulation means this costly taxpayer-funded remediation program may not be the last solution.

Dr Lorcan Sirr is a Senior Lecturer in Housing at the University of Technology Dublin