Did We Throw Up Rubbish Buildings in the Boom?

olcod wrote: »

And the radon that was installed is now totally useless after the lads who poured the floors over it would stab their shovels or re bar through it to let the water in the concrete out so it would dry quicker......yep seen it with my own eyes......crazy stuff:mad:

I dont think enough people realise the how serious it can be if a house was built with no radon barrier and there are high levels of radon gas in the area.
It is one of those hidden details which is very difficult to detect without the use of a radon testing kit. Its a huge shortcut many cowboy builders will have taken no doubt.

When you look at it objectively though, I think there's a deep cultural problem in Ireland (and to a degree in Britain too) when it comes to how we see trades.

Other than a few little clusters of manufacturing industry in Belfast, Dublin, Cork and smaller ones in a few other towns / cities, Ireland has really very little history of heavy industry / trades / engineering-led type industries.

Britain has a lot of engineering-led industries and a long history going back to the industrial revolution, but there's a tendency in the UK to look put bankers, doctors, lawyers and other 'establishment professionals' on a pedestal and sneer at Northern England's heavy industries which supported all that and the trades people who worked in them and actually paid for all the snooty lawyers and bankers in London for centuries.

I think part of the problem is that Ireland suffers from a bit of both of those combined.

On the one hand, we have a long history of being a predominantly agricultural economy and we have kind of idealised that too to some degree. While on the other hand, we have an educational system that is largely reflective of Victorian Britain i.e. a bit public-school like that focuses on sending people to third level to do very aloof degrees and seems to dislike anything practical / mechanical / artistic.

I really think we neglect to take trades seriously. There's too much of "ah Jonnie's a bit too thick for the leaving cert so he went off to do an apprenticeship" attitude and way way too much emphasis on trying to get into the protected professions i.e. medicine and law, when perhaps some of those people should be considering engineering / science etc.

Compared to say Germany where you've loads of options for science, mechanical engineering type courses in schools, Ireland really has very little of that in most schools. Yeah, I know we've the odd token bit here and there, but in a lot of schools you'd be struggling to even find an option to do art.

In general in Northern European countries (and sadly to an ever decreasing degree in Britain) trades are taken seriously and people take huge pride in being a top notch tradesperson and they are paid really and it's considered a 'good, respectable job' that someone can aspire to do. Cowboys are also cut out of the market because they'd see being a cowboy plumber as much the same as opening a medical practice and pretending you were a doctor or sticking "LAWYER" up outside your house and taking cases !

I went through school doing chemistry and physics without any serious attention to lab work. The teacher just wanted us to learn the notes off by heart and get the max points. So, we never really got down to playing with the lab gear which is how you actually learn / get an appreciation for hands-on science and maybe an interest in a more technical career.

I don't think the Government 'gets' trades. It talks a lot about them and goes on endlessly about policies for FETAC and craft councils and all sorts of things, then lets a qualified plumber / carpenter etc down by allowing a bunch of unqualified cowboys to undercut them on price and provides no regulatory framerwork to prevent this happening.

I suppose though, what do you expect when the Dail's largely filled by farmers, publicans, teachers, accountants and lawyers and state policy is drempt up largely by Sir Humphrey type characters who wouldn't know a what a hammer was if it dropped on their foot, never mind get their hands dirty.


Anyway ...

/rant

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

This is why the domestic economy is dying

I think it equally applies in other areas too like technology where there's a LOT of talk and very little substance coming from many politicians.

Every time a politician mentions the words "Smart economy" or "cloud computing" they should be asked to explain them in detail.

One of the worst indictments of our system is that someone went to huge effort to ensure that the Seanad would balance that out somewhat by having 'vocational panels'.

Senators are supposed to be drawn from professional backrounds in these areas, but in reality are usually just somehow technically qualified to fit onto them and are all professional public representatives i.e. failed Dail Candidates / County Councillors who want a bit of national exposure...

Also, these people are elected by local councillors, not directly by the people.

* Administrative Panel: Public administration and social services (including the voluntary sector).
* Agricultural Panel: Agriculture and the fisheries.
* Cultural and Educational Panel: Education, the arts, the Irish language and Irish culture and literature.
* Industrial and Commercial Panel: Industry and commerce (including engineering and architecture).
* Labour Panel: Labour (organised or otherwise).

& 6 senators from the Universities [NUI + Trinity] (which should have been broadened to include DCU, UL and the ITs but wasn't coz ... ya know ... you wouldn't want those scruffy types voting for senators).

The idea of that was to broaden debate and contribution to legislation.

Loads of stuff like that in Ireland that in theory sounds great, just gets ridden rough shod over by the political elite / establishment types and everything just gets done by the same group of jobs-for-the-boys/girls brigade.

So instead of being something that could have been potentially a huge benefit to the country by bringing people like engineers, trades people, technical people, academics, doctors, nurses, etc into the parliamentary democracy via an elected seat, it's actually driven itself into irrelevance so much so that there's a campaign to have it abolished to save money!

JupiterKid wrote: »

I think there's little doubt that many more Priory Hall scandals will unfold in he coming years. Of course, it will take a major catastrophe or tragedy before tge government actually do anything meaningful about enforcing building standards.

Solair IMO makes some excellent points about the perception of trades in Ireland as being part of the problem.

I hope nothing catastrophic happens, but given how some of those buildings were put together, I wouldn't be surprised if it did - especially when it comes to things like lack of fire safety equipment/design, gas/electrical issues or serious structural defects.

I mean we already have that estate in Longford with the sewer gas problems...