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Longboat quay- Another priory hall

take everything

Another appalling case. This time residents are apparently being asked to shell out 4 million to sort out the fire risk associated with these apartments

Ridiculous.

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brooke 2

Uncle Ben wrote: »

I mentioned something similar a few years back in a semi d I was in. The blockwork only went up so far into the attic and if you stood on your toes you could see into the next doors attic. When I said it to the householder he said he had been told by the builder that it was to allow the attic to breathe! Furthermore, when the neighbours plugged in or out a plug or switched on the TV you could hear it in the adjoining house. These houses were built in 05 / 06.

Surely the banks checked out the assets they were backing.

Weren't 'drive-by' checks by the banks in vogue back then?

brooke 2

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

Why are RTE news saying the Bernard McNamara had a good reputation. Why the fook would you say that and in the same breath state his buildings were "reasonably" built.?

Twice they mentioned his reputation!

Sean O'Rourke at it again just now!

brooke 2

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Why don't the owners go down to Stephens Green and blockade all works on the building that McNamara Construction are working on until he pays up? Nothing annoys a multi millionaire more than people taking crumbs from his table.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/commercial-property/it-feels-like-2007-all-over-again-as-bernard-mcnamara-moves-on-site-1.1890436

Bump!

KlausFlouride

Does this sort of thing happen in other (roughly comparable) countries, like say Germany, the UK or Canada?

tigerboon

KlausFlouride wrote: »

Does this sort of thing happen in other (roughly comparable) countries, like say Germany, the UK or Canada?

Naples or Sicily maybe

beauf

Of the 3,595 BER assessments carried out on houses built to the 2008 version of Part L of the building regulations, which deals with insulation and energy, 1,946 — or 54% — fail at least one of the three main standards.

This marked a dramatic increase from the 21% of homes built to the 2005 regulations that failed to meet its main requirements. Part L was updated again last far, but few homes have been built to this new version.

Last year Construct Ireland revealed that an unpublished survey of Irish housing built between 1997 and 2002 commissioned by the SEAI found that none of the houses examined complied fully with energy efficiency regulations. Over 90% of of homes with oil boilers failed to comply with rules on reducing the risk of fire spread and pollution from oil tanks, while over 40% failed to meet ventilation standards.

Infra red photography of housing conducted as part of the survey found that 19 out of 20 houses had gaps in insulation, in contravention of the regulations, that were not revealed by basic visual inspections. This suggest the number of homes failing to meet insulation standards today could be higher than the latest SEAI data indicates, as BER assessors typically assume on-paper specifications are correct if they can’t access insulation.

http://lennyantonelli.ie/half-of-new-homes-fail-energy-efficiency-rules/

The survey was I assume only a tiny %.

The reality is we have standards, for a whole range of things, that almost never get checked and thus (in my opinion) largely ignored.

Uncle Ben

KlausFlouride wrote: »

Does this sort of thing happen in other (roughly comparable) countries, like say Germany, the UK or Canada?

Jesus you can't compare us to Germany, UK or Canada. In those countries politicians and others take responsibility for fcuk ups and either resign or get sacked.
We're more comparable to some fiefdom where you fcuk up and you keep the head down and either retire on full pension or get transferred elsewhere.

Atlantic Dawn

You would think if a council was getting a €30k levy per apartment they could send a chap down to the apartments in question to have an hours look around for each one.

298x30k is nearly €9 million the council got in levys for just this apartment block and it looks like nobody whatsoever from the council did any inspection whatsoever regarding fire regulations despite getting nearly €9 million.

Wurzelbert

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

It's mad that Bernard McNamara is now building big developments again but under a (slightly) different company name.

Pre qualification should also include previous and existing business that directors are involved in and should lose large points for receivership/liquidation/bankruptcy.

As it stands, it's the same old names popping up again.

yes, i heard. so why can he not be made to pay for his old company’s ****up? i mean, is there no way of suing him? no chance?

[Deleted User]

McGrath5 wrote: »

One of my friends bought a house built around 2005/6, he noticed the ceiling around where the extractor fan in the en suite was starting to become discoloured. After getting up into the attic to check it out, it turns out the builder did not run a pipe up to the roof to a vent, they just covered the fan with insulation, scumbags!

Know two people who had the insulation done under the grant thing and the tools just put insulation over ceiling fans and the motors burned out. Just glad they burned out without setting the insulation off despite the scorch marks.

Snickers Man

brooke 2 wrote: »

Had the face bitten off me on here a few months ago when I accepted that Longboat Quay was another Priory Hall!! Was searching for that thread last night but could not find it.

Is this the thread in question?

Some guy saying that it is "beyond sensational to compare this to Priory Hall".

I wonder if it's still his/her view.

KlausFlouride

Uncle Ben wrote: »

Jesus you can't compare us to Germany, UK or Canada. In those countries politicians and others take responsibility for fcuk ups and either resign or get sacked.

Quite. But I'm wondering do other countries have systems that tackle this sort of problem better. The temptation & pressure for a bodge and scarper approach in Ireland is no higher than anywhere else. Is there a better regulatory environment somewhere else internationally?

SEPT 23 1989

It will take a couple of hundred funerals to get any action

EnergyBlaster

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

It will take a couple of hundred funerals to get any action

Unfortunately it is looking like that. Huge issues right in front of us and the issue that seems to be taking centre stage is that of money. What will happen when a fire starts in one of these apartments at night and quickly becomes uncontrollable, multiple deaths, Men, Women, Children and Babies.

My feeling is that a very large minority of the apartment buildings built during these times have been built like this.

Irish Steve

This won't be a popular opinion, but what's becoming visible now with this and similar cases is the result of the Irish attitude towards ANY bill from local authorities, regardless of if it's for bins, rates, water charges or similar, the "low cost/no cost" mentality is what's got us where we are, if people won't pay for the services that they expect to be in place, then the local authorities have to find other ways to balance their ever decreasing budgets. ( And no, I don't work for a local authority, and never have)

I moved to Ireland from a UK town of similar size to Ashbourne, which is where I'm living now, and the town in the UK had it's own local town council, with planning controls and the like, the legislation is very similar between the UK and Ireland. The difference is that in the UK, for a town of just over 10,000 population, the planning and building control department had a staff of 10, and half of them were the building control section, who spent their a lot of their time going out onto EVERY site that was being developed carrying out inspections of the stages of construction, and if the inspection wasn't signed off by building control, they could (and did) require that all work subsequent to the missed inspection was removed to facilitate the inspection, regardless of the cost or other implication, so you didn't miss ANY inspections. We built a house (restoration and upgrade) so I had first hand knowledge of how the system worked, and what the implications were if you didn't comply.

Then, we moved to Ireland, and signed up for a build here in Ashbourne. Don't believe that things were better before the celtic cowboy years, those celtic cowboys were trained by someone, they were the builders that were active in the 90's, I know, we had them here on our estate, and I very soon discovered that there was no point expecting the architect (who had received a significant fee etc) to do any sort of inspections, and I very rapidly discovered that there was also NO building control inspections from the local authority, they didn't have ANY staff in that area at all, so compliance was none existent, then and now, self certification is a joke, and a 6 year statute of limitation on a property that should have a life of 100 plus years is also bizarre.

So, what we have in Ireland is the worst of all worlds. The client has a culture of paying for nothing, and the builder knows that no one is going to be taking any notice of what they actually do, rather than what they are supposed to do, and anyway, between the regular liquidisation of building companies, the statute of limitation, and the lack of teeth in Homebond, it won't matter anyway, as by the time all the cheats, shortcuts and deliberate fiddles come to light, there will be nobody to take the blame or pay the bills that are the outcome.

We got a reasonable house at the end of our build (1990), but that was only because for a 6 month period, I drove out to Ashbourne from Dublin every evening, and did my own inspections, and if it wasn't right, I made sure that they dealt with it before they could move on or hide the evidence. I didn't catch everything, because I couldn't always be here, but we had the only central heating system out of 20 houses that still works, and our electrics didn't keep tripping out every few days like some of the other houses that went up at the same time, and there were other issues that we didn't have because the builder knew I was watching them like a hawk.

Regulation without regular stage inspections and enforcement is pointless, and doesn't work, and that's becoming more and more apparent, and the only way it will change is if there is an inspection regime that is not controlled by the developer or the client, and is beyond any reproach or bribeability, and that inspection regime has to have the absolute power to shut down ANY site, regardless of the size or the cost implications, if the inspection requirements are not 100% complied with. If that was in place, then maybe we wouldn't be having these sorts of discussions about the standard or otherwise of construction work.

I'm not advocating that the local authorities here should be the control organisation either, given that there is no way to remove non performing civil servants, for inspection regimes to work, the people that are operating them have to be competent, and have to be removable from their position if it becomes apparent that they are not doing their job properly, and we've seen so many examples of mind numbing maladministration from local authorities here, I'm not at all happy with the idea of making them judge and jury of the building standards system. their track record over the last 15 or so years is far from good.

A house, or apartment, is NOT the same sort of thing as a car, or a TV, for all sorts of reasons. The anticipated and expected life span is massively longer (or should be), and that fact alone requires that the standards applied to the construction have to be orders of magnitude higher than those applied to the sale of "consumables".

We as a nation have to start making serious decisions about how we want to structure the country. We can continue with the attitude that no one pays for "services", or we can accept that services like building standards, public infrastructure, water, and waste disposal, and roads, and lighting in public places all have to be paid for, and everyone has to pay something towards them.

That opens up a whole new area of contention and discussion, like how fit for purpose state services actually are, and the value for money that we get from those services, but I'm not going there, as it's highly controversial and a long way off topic.

A surveyor can only do so much when inspecting a property that's been finished, as too much that is of critical importance is hidden from view, and can't be seen without doing massive damage. That's why we have to have a better and more intrusive and invasive inspection regime during construction, and in many respects, our legislators have failed all of us by their reliance on "soft touch" regulation. Ideally, the legislators should pay for their mistakes, but that won't happen any time soon, and given the size and scale of the issues that are going to be ongoing for a long time to come, I can't help thinking that some form of significant levy on ALL developers going forward is going to be the only way to sort out these massive issues that have the potential to blight the lives of so many people.

Atlantic Dawn

Irish Steve wrote: »

This won't be a popular opinion, but what's becoming visible now with this and similar cases is the result of the Irish attitude towards ANY bill from local authorities, regardless of if it's for bins, rates, water charges or similar, the "low cost/no cost" mentality is what's got us where we are, if people won't pay for the services that they expect to be in place, then the local authorities have to find other ways to balance their ever decreasing budgets. ( And no, I don't work for a local authority, and never have)

Each apartment payed a massive levy upon construction to the council, everyone now pays property taxes, the people payed good money for a poorly constructed property, there was plenty of money around from the sale of these apartments and others to sufficienctly fund inspections.

Irish Steve

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Each apartment payed a massive levy upon construction to the council, everyone now pays property taxes, the people payed good money for a poorly constructed property, there was plenty of money around from the sale of these apartments and others to sufficienctly fund inspections.

In theory yes, but in practice, there is still NO inspection regime in place within the local authorities, they don't have the staff to carry out inspections, and don't see it as their job to carry out such inspections, which is another issue altogether.

As for where they spend the money they get, I made a comment that there are serious questions to ask about how fit for purpose our state services are, but I don't want to distract this thread from the core issue

Atlantic Dawn

Irish Steve wrote: »

In theory yes, but in practice, there is still NO inspection regime in place within the local authorities, they don't have the staff to carry out inspections, and don't see it as their job to carry out such inspections, which is another issue altogether.

As for where they spend the money they get, I made a comment that there are serious questions to ask about how fit for purpose our state services are, but I don't want to distract this thread from the core issue

Perhaps it needs to be a seperate entity that aproves the apartments/houses and the dwellings can't be sold and the council don't get their levy money until they are approved.

arayess

McGrath5 wrote: »

One of my friends bought a house built around 2005/6, he noticed the ceiling around where the extractor fan in the en suite was starting to become discoloured. After getting up into the attic to check it out, it turns out the builder did not run a pipe up to the roof to a vent, they just covered the fan with insulation, scumbags!

mine was built in 2001 and the same was the case.
Been there since the build myself , only found out 2 years ago , had a builder pal in the attic with me and he pointed it out.
The pipe it was supposed to be connected to was half the roof away.
thankfully my mate fixed it up in 30mins.
I had to buy him pints then

you would worry what your house is really like

KlausFlouride

There's inevitably going to be some issues just due to complexity of house building. Would catastrophic problems like in Longboat/Priory Hall be discovered by a thorough inspection by an experienced architect/engineer/builder during a build?

Irish Steve

KlausFlouride wrote: »

There's inevitably going to be some issues just due to complexity of house building. Would catastrophic problems like in Longboat/Priory Hall be discovered by a thorough inspection by an experienced architect/engineer/builder during a build?

As long as the inspector had access to the approved plans, so fully aware of what was supposed to be in place, and inspections were carried out regularly, they yes, very easily

riclad

A builder pays taxes on everything he uses ,vat 20 per cent plus , plus
a large payment to the council .
So the buyer gets an apartment ,with no idea if the building is up to standard to building regs, re sound insulation ,or fire safety .
its not a low cost system,
building anything here is much more expensive than in the uk,or northern ireland .
The difference is buildings are not inspected by anyone ,
unless its a council built home.
Take i new house, for 250k, a large part of the cost is taxes ,council levys.
we have seen in the boom, bust self regulation is a disaster for the tax payer
or the potential buyer .
WE need to bring in a proper building inspection system .
if this means councils need to hire new staff , let them do so.
Maybe people should stop buying apartments ,
unless they have documents to show that the building is built in line
with current standards .

Mr.Plough

mfceiling wrote: »

Working on a job yesterday. Popped open a few ceiling tiles (entire grid and tile being changed). Lo and be hold the block work only goes a few runs above the ceiling level. Same this morning in another office. Basically if a fire breaks out it will travel along the corridor taking out every office on the way!! It's been brought to the clients attention by us....They are mad to put it mildly.

Due to the relatively low fire load in offices (compared to retail/dwellings), occupants being awake and familiar with the premises and evacuating all at once, offices generally do not need to form separate fire compartments. The offices would only need to be fire separated from the corridor if the corridor was needed to limit travel distances or it was dividing separate tenancies etc.

In flats/apartments its different, as there is a sleeping risk involved and only the apartment on fire will evacuate (i.e. I'm not evacuating if next door burns toast). Therefore, as other occupants will usually stay in their apartment until the fire brigade sort out the fire, they need additional protection via each flat/apt forming a separate fire compartment.

arayess

Irish Steve wrote: »

This won't be a popular opinion, but what's becoming visible now with this and similar cases is the result of the Irish attitude towards ANY bill from local authorities, regardless of if it's for bins, rates, water charges or similar, the "low cost/no cost" mentality is what's got us where we are, if people won't pay for the services that they expect to be in place, then the local authorities have to find other ways to balance their ever decreasing budgets. ( And no, I don't work for a local authority, and never have)
etc etc.

.

you are my hero :rolleyes:

myshirt

Did someone say recently that there are more building inspectors in Belfast than there are in the entire amount of the Republic of Ireland.

To think of all these boys smoking cigars while the purchasers have basically just been shafted.... :mad:

Pinch Flat

myshirt wrote: »

Did someone say recently that there are more building inspectors in Belfast than there are in the entire amount of the Republic of Ireland.

To think of all these boys smoking cigars while the purchasers have basically just been shafted.... :mad:

I work in the industry and have heard audible giggles from fellow professionals from the UK when they heard about our self certifying system. It's an utter joke and was obviously open to rampant abuse - they new regime may help, but it's still no replacement for an independent regime like the uk has.

My work these days gets me involved in assets that are being disposed of and the due diligence, mostly for purchasers. What we are coming across is truly worrying - standard paint used in lieu of intumescent paint on steelwork, impaired fire escapes, incorrectly installed fire alarms, all sorts of issues with fire compartmentation, incorrectly constructed fire lobbies etc.

This and others are only the top of the iceberg and a damning legacy of what's been allowed to fester in this country.

beauf

Irish Steve wrote: »

... is the result of the Irish attitude towards ANY bill from local authorities, regardless of if it's for bins, rates, water charges or similar, the "low cost/no cost" mentality is what's got us where we are, if people won't pay for the services that they expect to be in place, then the local authorities have to find other ways to balance their ever decreasing budgets. ( And no, I don't work for a local authority, and never have)....

I wouldn't agree. What happens in Ireland is they make up loads of taxes, call them charges, then don't use them for the purpose they are are described as. There's a whole raft of professional bodies, trades, certificates and standards, and rules which we pay a lot for, but are not professional, or adhered to. In addition most of these things have no one responsible for them. So there's no real penalties for people being unprofessional or not adhering to standards.

The only consistent thing is the consumer, end ups carrying the cost of all these mistakes. So these services, charges, standards are not credible to the consumer. So its not an unwillingness to pay for a good return. its an unwillingness to pay and get nothing, or very little in return.

Ireland has a perception its not as corrupt or as dysfunctional as some corrupt 2nd or 3rd world countries. When the truth is, we are probably worse in a lot of ways. The Longboat quay scandal is not a failure of one thing. Its an epidemic of systemic failures across a lot of professions, services, and bodies.

beauf

riclad wrote: »

....documents to show that the building is built in line with current standards .

The document is worthless if there nothing behind it.

jmayo

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

Why are RTE news saying the Bernard McNamara had a good reputation. Why the fook would you say that and in the same breath state his buildings were "reasonably" built.?

Twice they mentioned his reputation!

Because bernie was one of the insiders, actually still is.

They can't turn round and say he is a sc**b** who dumped billions of debts on the Irish taxpayer, built shyte properties, legged it to the UK to declare bankruptcy, but yet is now back and in business again.

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

Because the company working at St Stephens Green is a completely different entity and has nothing to do with the company that built the apartments.

All in the eyes of the law, of course.

Still the same principles involved.

Valetta wrote: »

Caveat Emptor.

Buyers should take responsibility for carrying out their own due diligence on such a sizeable purchase.

Are you supposed to tear down a wall to see what it is made of ?
Are you supposed to dig up the foundations to find out if it is full of pyrite ?
If you buying an apartment are you supposed to check the entire building ?

michael999999 wrote: »

The scary thing is, fianna fail were handing Bernard Mc namaras construction company contracts hand over fist when they were in power.

I personally know of them building the new library at The I.T. College in Tralee. An Tintean Building at The Mary I teachers college in Limerick. And The Irish World Academy of Music and Dance also in Limerick.

They also built the Parknasilla holiday resort in Kerry. Which Bertie Ahern had two weeks holiday in, before it opened.

Will all these buildings now need urgent inspection?

You do know that bernie was in ff and even stood for them in elections in Clare ?
bernie has long had his snout at the taxpayer funded trough thanks to his fianna fail genes.

tayto lover wrote: »

I got a surveyor to examine mine before I bought it.

Most sane people do, but read the fine print carefully.
Somewhere in there is a statement that he thinks the building is ok, subject to what he has been able to see.

I would bet he hasn't drilled through walls, opened holes in them dug under the foundation, etc.

beauf

I don't think this is a political issue, other than its a failing of successive Govts.