Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
PLANNING EXPERTS, ARCHITECTS and politicians have expressed concerns about the fire safety compliance of many of Ireland’s buildings, following on from the devastating fire at a London tower block earlier in the week.
UK prime minister Theresa May has ordered a full inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire on Wednesday, in which at least 17 people were killed. Police have said they expect the death toll to rise.
Speculation has been mounting over how the fire spread through the building so quickly.
The focus of criticism centres on the cladding fitted to external walls on the 1970s concrete block as part of a €9.9 million refit completed last year.
According to the BBC, the cladding had a plastic core and was similar to that used by high-rise buildings in France, the United Arab Emirates and Australia, which had also suffered fires that spread.
Following on from the fire, concerns have been raised about a number of issues around Ireland’s fire safety regulations.
Dublin Social Democrats councillor Cian O’Callaghan said the blaze must serve as a “wake up call” for Irish fire safety authorities.
He called on incoming Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy to introduce a number of measures around addressing fire safety issues here.
O’Callaghan pointed to a number of housing estates built during the economic boom that fail to meet fire safety standards.
A famous example of this is Priory Hall in Dublin, which was evacuated in 2011 over serious fire safety concerns. More recent examples include Longboat Quay and Beacon South Quarter in Dublin, which also had fire-safety issues.
O’Callaghan said that a large number of estates that were built during boom-time years did not meet proper fire safety standards, and that the problem needed to be addressed.
O’Callaghan’s concerns are echoed by architect and housing expert Mel Reynolds, who said there are at least 30 building developments built during the Celtic Tiger years that have structural or fire safety issues.
Reynolds said that in many cases, tenants or owners living in these developments don’t raise the issue publicly as they are worried about the value of their homes plummeting as a result.
With a number of Celtic Tiger developments, the residents have had to foot the bill themselves to bring their homes up to fire safety code.
“You actually have more consumer protection if you buy a phone than a home,” said Reynolds.
Reynolds also called for more building control inspectors in the country, in order to ensure that developments are up to standard.
This is a view shared by former Minister of State for Planning and Green Party councillor Ciarán Cuffe, who said that Ireland needed an independent building inspection system to ensure fire safety standards were adhered to.
“I think its good to have an independent inspection system and perhaps that is something that Minister Murphy should be looking at in Ireland as part of a review of this tragic incident,” he said.
Millfield Manor
Both O’Callaghan and Reynolds also raised concerns about the delay in publishing a report into the 2015 fire at Millfield Manor estate in Kildare.
On 31 March, 2015 fire spread rapidly destroying a terrace of six houses in half an hour in the estate. Industry standards dictate that it should take at least half an hour for a fire to spread from one building to another.
This meant that the fire should have taken three hours to spread in the manner that it did.
Following the blaze, then-Environment Minister Alan Kelly announced a review to “develop a framework for general application” in residences where fire safety was a concern.
The review was completed 15 months ago, but the report has yet to be published.
O’Callaghan called on the Government to publish the report as a matter of urgency.
In relation to the report, a Housing Department spokesperson said:
The report on Milford Manor remains under examination and the Department is seeking clarification on a number of issues.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I’m sure those who don’t understand will celebrate this without realising that bond auctions mean we will be even further in debt.
Bond=Bondage. We will have to pay it back with interest, but in reality what will happen is that the theoretical money that is a bond (and indeed all money from a central bank) will be exchanged for our nations true physical real world assets (Utilities, properties, ports, forestry, oil & gas)
We borrow theoretical money to pay for our inability to stop overspending in order to keep politicians in power. Our nation is sold off. It is very frustrating to watch.
Ok, Oliver. We’ll close down the hospitals, fire stations and Garda barracks so. Should probably stop that social welfare thingy too- seems mad expensive.
Nah Vincent…. thats the easy way out.
Better idea would be to perform same public services, but at a more sustainable cost.
Ah now Vincent, your sarcastic edition of spending control is a very poor argument.
The result of this debt based bertie budget bonanza is that we are being taxed more and more each year as our debt load intensifies and pay-back hurts more.
We need to reverse the Bertie era bonanza where every interest group was thrown unlimited borrowed money for anything they wanted. But we also need to refuse to pay for the banking recapitalisations and guarantee schemes which were completely unconstitutional. Stop these payments now and we will have a lot more money to pay for services that are essential.
@Oliver- I don’t disagree that we need to wean ourselves off our credit habit. I would just suggest easing off with some methodone is preferable to subjecting an already shell shocked country to cold turkey. Either way, this is good news as it brings forward the day when we can put the humiliation of the bailout behind us.
Hi Vincent, problem is we are taking heroin and methadone – we are not paying back any debt whatsoever – we are actually INCREASING our debt.
Any subjective feelings of humiliation are irrelevant.
We should have let the ponzi banks collapse and start a new beginning with our own currency and no bailouts and looting of our nation.
@oliver- fantastic. Lets leave the Euro. Because that won’t lead to a mass withdrawal of Foreign MNC’s? And let’s renege on our debts. Because that won’t leave us an international pariah. This is your strategy for a self sufficient Republic? And salvation lies therein?
@Oliver: And what do you imagine would happen to the savings in those banks? Even if the bank could magically liquidate overnight and offload all it’s mortgages and loans then they still wont come close to covering their customers savings.
Oliver
Are you promoting the idea of an immediate Balanced Budget? If you are then the consequences would be a thirty per cent reduction on overall Social Protection spend and a thirty percent reduction in all PD salaries!
The immediate consequences would be a sudden and dramatic downward spiral in the economy to a level not seen since the 1950′s and from which we could never recover. So Ollie is that what ya want?
Yes Vincent – leave the euro – this myth that we need the euro to survive is complete rubbish. The UK, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden all do extremely well without it.
This political/economic blackmail that we must at all cost (and all costs it certainly is) remain in the euro is complete misinformation by the central bankers so that they can control our money supply.
Is Iceland an international pariah? A pariah to whom? The vulture capitalists and central bankers of course. Your policy of being at the mercy of banking scams and criminals is unbelievable, but your wishes are being granted everyday by the current government.
Dave you are absolutely correct, we would have lost any deposits in these banks as our banking/money system was and continues to be an absolute ponzi scheme. The loss in deposits would be a fraction of what we will have to pay for the choices Lenehan and subsequent financial politicans/civil servants made.
Can I ask the 2 of you, who are completely against my opinion, how are we to get out of this debt trap that is growing with current policy?
…sorry to extend my rant, forgot to mention that MNCs are NOT here for the euro. Low corporation tax primarily, also reasonably skilled work force, english language, copious non heavy metal contaminated water supply for pharma, etc, but NOT the euro.
Oliver: What you’re suggesting is impractical and unfair. Wiping out the life-time savings of a 70+ year old who is dependant on their savings for a decent quality of life is not fair.
At the moment we’re roughly in line the U.S and U.K when it comes to budget deficit as a % of GDP (I’m not suggesting that the U.S. and U.K. don’t have budget deficit issues either). The budget deficit is very worrying but it’s decreasing year-by-year and it will come good in time.
Dave- it certainly is unfair, but we can’t be held to infinite ransom. The grandchildren of these pensioners will pay a great price for preserving the savings of their grandparents in the great fiat currency Ponzi scheme.
It is mathematically impossible for the US to pay off its national debt. I don’t think we should emulate this legacy.
Our debts, private and national will never be paid with current policy. I believe the current government know this but have no idea how to get out of it, and are taking some comfort that we are not alone as a nation. That is not a solution.
Dave, I think we want the same outcome for our nation, but we have very different ideas on how to achieve it.
To be honest Oliver bond auctions are how a country normally funds its spending requirements and while I’m no fan at all of the current crowd of incompetants, it must be seen as a minor step back to some nomality. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to borrow at all but then again when things such as our new found oil reserves are in the hands of the likes of Pat Rabbitt that day is a long long way away.
@Oliver:
> It is *mathematically* impossible for the US to pay off its national debt.
I have to call you out on your math. Show your workings please.
What you are suggesting Oliver is completely unrealistic, unfair & misguiding. Of course its more debt, we’re borrowing. What we are celebrating is the confidence the market has shown in our country.
It begs belief how people can continuously complain about our position. Four years ago this country was on it’s knees and on the verge of total collapse. I’m not going to say I agree with every decision our government has made but I can’t argue with the fact that we are now standing again. That’s a lot more that can be said for other countries that were in a similar position.
Borrowing is normal. As is debt. Just as businesses in-debt themselves to grown, countries in-debt themselves for the same reasons. We are a long way from fixed but we are taking positive steps to bringing our debt under control.
Not all debt is bad as you seem to imply. Manageable and controlled debt leads to growth. thankfully that is the direction our country is going.
Oliver – Again, misleading. It doesn’t matter if US never clears its debts. It’s a country, not a person. Unlike us, it doesn’t have an end date. The same debts will roll on long after we have left this earth.
Pedro
your government made none of these decisions, you are simply following the path the last government laid out.
there was an article earlier in the week in which the journalist stated that irish external economic policy would have been exactly the same if the last gangsters were in power.
the only decisions your government made were the decisions on where and how the cuts were to be made and in that they failed miserably. instead of taking the correct decisions they hit the ones that always get hit and thats lazy lazy politics.
At the risk of falling victim to a troll, i could not care less who’s policies they’re using. What matters is that they are working. What better position do you honestly think we would be in if we did things differently??
Pedro, I cannot believe what you are advocating. How am I unfair and unrealistic? I am too critical of decisions made by government? The debt trap we are in is not a result of the policies I am suggesting, it is because people who ran for election or were in high positions within the civil service either a) did not understand the workings of the finance portfolio/department they were in, and signed off on disastrous economic policies or b) knew what was going on and sold out their people for personal gain.
So telling me I’m unrealistic, unfair and misguiding, to put it mildly, makes no sense.
You are basically saying that getting into unlimited unsustainable debt is normal and we should continue to do so. This is incredible. You treat the markets as our friend, our God like saviour when you cannot see them for what they really are – they are conning us out of ownership of our nation.
You took us from our knees (FF), and clamped generations of debt shackles to us(FG/Lab). We signed up to debt slavery for generations to come – this is not standing again.
Borrowing is normal in times of emergency, but it has been made normal to buy citizens votes. For the love of God we were even borrowing when “the country was awash with money”. Germany has no where near as much reckless debt as our government plunged us into and I see people on here bashing Merkel and her nation because they were not foolish as us.
Our debt is growing expotentially, our export growth contributes a very small amount to our consuming debt burden. We will not own our country very soon because you and successive governments followed the trojan horse advice of the central bankers.
I am very sorry to sound so negative, but decision after decision made by our elected leaders has been completely disastrous for the citizens of this country. We have to identifty the problem before we can solve it but (in my opinion) what you advocate completely the opposite of the solution.
Come on Pedro wake up to reality.
troll, troll eile, pedro
you said in your rebuttal of olivers piece
I’m not going to say I agree with every decision our government has made but I can’t argue with the fact that we are now standing again. That’s a lot more that can be said for other countries that were in a similar position.
you credit the actions as your governments decision it was not your governments decision infact your governments decision before the election was not to pay but now that there are possible signs you are trying to claim credit
you can have it both ways my friend
you also convieniently ignored my point about internal economic policy
I’ve got a massive tool
Save your breath Oliver, this argument has been going on here for years at this stage. People don’t want to take their medicine. To use the analogy from above, every little helps, no matter how tainted; they’re happy to stay addicted, like any junkie.
@ Oliver – there’s no real alternative for a Western country to regulate cashflow other than participating in the bond markets. Would you be prepared to accept that your salary be paid only once a year? A state cannot function on the tax take alone, without any sort of bridging mechanism. If you have an alternative solution, which is sustainable and ensures that workers and services are paid for regularly and consistently, I’d very much like to hear it. There’d probably be a Nobel prize in it for you, and I mean that quite sincerely.
Once growth is higher than the interest rate then we’re grand. Time for that stimulus package, get your finger out Mr Noonan and lets grow the country.
We’ll have to borrow for that too :-D
Pierce, we would need our growth to catch up with debt repayments, plus their interest, plus our budget deficit. We are spiraling into even worse debt. The “green shoots” talk is just not reality.
Debt repayments or more accurately debt funding are included in budget deficits, if the money we borrow is invested in the country then the economy can grow. Public spending is the tough part of this, specifically the public service pay bill and social welfare, cutting the two these will release money for that investment.
The Governments policies are working !
You mean that the last governments policies are working, Fine Gael have done nothing different policy wise than that last lot of gangsters!
Frank or whatever
Please come back when you know a little more about economics. This was a great day on our return journey to fiscal sovereignty. Tough decisions taken by a decisive Government have convinced the markets that we have Leadership with mettle and mean what we say. This is a huge step back from our own fiscal cliff.
Pierce – payments to PARTIALLY service the national debt is included in the budget, but the total debt is not mentioned.
Can’t wait for Mr Noonan to stimulate my package.
michael open your eyes and please read what i said.
all fine gael are doing are carrying out the last governments fiscal economic policies.
fine gael have not introduced any new fiscal economic policies
i have forgotten more than you will ever know about economics michael
please read the comment properly before jumping the gun its such a waste of time having to say things over and over
@Frank- I honestly don’t care whose policies they are. They’re working. That’s all that matters.
very hard to stay reading comment when you have to listen to the s**t the collins spouts. Frank you are right. This government has NO original ideas. They did nothing. Green shoots my A**e. Its all bull S**t. This country is f****d
@Vincent. How much are Fianna Gael paying you to comment here. A robot would be more informative.
Vincent I am happy to engage in meaningful discussion with you and we have had some right auld ding dongs all in good nature and like adults. Debate is good and there is always two sides to every arguement but what i wont engage in is wasting my time with muppets like michael. The point you have made is valid but as a fellow fine gael supporter can you please tell michael that these are not fine gaels policies because no matter what i say he believes the opposite. Its up for debate whether or not this is a good thing and i think oliver has made some very good arguements against but what is not up for debate is that these are the fiscal policies of the present government
@Christopher- I can only aspire to reach the lofty heights of your eloquent, insightful and provocative contributions to these debates. I’ll try to read up, maybe do some courses. It will be well nigh impossible but I’ll try to keep my eyes on the prize.
Fact: FG have now added a total of 37.5 billion to the national debt to cover current account expenditure. They took the “tough decision” to mug the carers but balked at cutting the pay and pensions of themselves and their fat cat top civil servants. The changed pay and pensions of future civil servants condemning them to a lifetime living in penury to save guard the ones who got in before the ladder was hauled up.
They’re now insisting on advance payment from cancer sufferers and will dig u out of ur grave to collect family home tax.
This bunch of inhuman animals are worse than any FF govt ever was. They disgust me and thousands like me.
Kenny’s refusal to deal with his own exorbitant pay and pension and similar senior lackey gombeen men in the civil service is ensuring no bank debt deal is forth coming and guaranteeing we will be slaves to Germany and the IMF. All to preserve his “entitlements”.
We have no patriotic politicians left. They are all in it to line their own pockets. How far we have fallen since the birth of our nation.
“Let no man dare, when I am dead. to charge me with dishonor; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country’s liberty and independence, or that I could have become the pliant minion of power in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen.”
Robert Emmet, 1803
You’ll never be able to say that Enda Kenny. Traitor.
As for the clever people who bought Irish bonds today, they KNOW bailout2 is around the corner
@Frank- these are Fine Gael policies. Do you know how I know? Because Fine Gael are in power and these are the policies being pursued. They could pursue different ones if they so wished. They haven’t. You say they’re FF policies in origin. I say they’re European policies in origin; the same as Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain are following. So should FG get credit for pursuing them when they work? Of course. Because if SF were in power, we’d be in a whole world of crap right now. FG are pursuing the right course when empowered to do otherwise. If it wasn’t working they would be getting the blame after all….
I think we could both settle on Troika policies
but i still disagree
this government is not proactive enough in pushing our agenda and i worry about the negociations.
i worry we will settle for a debt writedown and have to agree with oliver this will make us debt slaves to europe. we will be drip fed credit which will make it impossible to recover from. our ecomomy is getting worse unemployment and emigration are potentially going to cripple us and if that doesnt the mortgage crisis will. our tax take this year was slightly up but this was due mainly to stealth taxes and that will eventually will erode the tax base.
we need debt write off and nothing less. john noonan should be telling angela if europe want to bury what happpened the night of the bailout its gonna cost 64billion to keep their little secret.
we have the presidency so lets be a bit more proactive
@ Vincent. If these are FG policies how come we keep hearing from government ministers who claim they can do nothing because FF signed Ireland up for the policies. Example house hold tax Enda & Eamon on record in Leinster House telling Martin “it was your party that done it”….
this is what i want to see on john noonans agena
that a debt writeoff would suit all parties concerned
that if ireland only gets a debt writedown it will be his duty as the minster for finance to publish the letters recieved the night of the bailout to prove to the irish people that he executed his job as best he could in order to get a deal.
time is running out
@kerry- you might need to read what I wrote again….
We’re rich!! Richer than astronauts!!!
How do u cure a junkie? Give him MORE drugs. #ntma #unsustainabledebt
Whoop-de-doo!
More debt!
“Fiscal Independence”- That has a nice ring to it.
Two words “Fiscal Treaty”
5 point plan has too.
Still waiting,
Adebayo.
I’d love to shove my fiscal independence up kennys hole.
Before we all run out and order new mercs a quick read of der spiegel (English edition) on Ireland’s debt might take the shine off this so called good news story
Wow… So if give a commitment to pay back investors and then stick by it, they are willing to lend the country the money it needs…who knew? Such a simple concept, but then why does it escape the grasp of so many on here?
Perhaps the average IQ of the journals commenters is perhaps at the same level as those who believe Sinn Fein is the manna from heaven that Ireland needs?
The same sort of people that believe that the Rothschilds do the cha cha with Angela Merkel and the Queen at Sandringham every wet Tuesday.
Conor
Hope you’re IP address isn’t visible. They came after me you know!
Yeah. You’d want to be careful if you’re linked to Facebook too. They do try to trick their way onto your personal page. Probably best that they don’t have your home address…
If i gamble and loose,still get paid back what’s the chance i’ll continue to gamle?
The Ponzi scam that fostered Ireland into the bailout is the same people who are buying the Irish government bonds. These people are already making a PROFIT from the bailout conditions PLUS up to 3.5% interest TOP UP when these bonds mature in a market where the interest rate is actually ZERO is Win win for these people.More DEBT for Irish people and MORE CUTS in future budgets.
Since “we” were bailed out? Don’t you mean “the banks”? Last time I checked, the Irish people didn’t own a state in privately owned banks.
@joe- Brian Lenihan invested in them, so yeah- we do.
Why is the rate of 3.35% considered good? On Newstalk today they were saying it was a good rate considering where the rates were even this time last year, but the reason it’s that high is because Ireland is still seen as a somewhat risky investment. If we insist on paying back all the unsecured bond holders in full where’s the risk? Surely given the fact that we haven’t burnt any of the bond holders the rate should be lower.
The downside of leaving the Euro would be a very weak IEP which would mean an instant large cut in everyone’s spending power.
We import most of our energy and most of our consumer goods.
So, let’s say IEP devalued by 50%. That’s your petrol, heating and most of your groceries doubling in price. You can forget buying that iPhone etc etc.
Yeah, we’d be more competitive, we’d also be a lot poorer.
It’s also questionable as to what it would solve as our external debt would likely be denominated in Euro, Sterling and Dollars anyway.
If we were to devalue the Euro itself, at least everything (other than oil and electronics etc) would come down together as Europe makes a lot of stuff and mostly trades with itself.
The Iceland situation isn’t necessarily all that wonderful. They took a HUGE cut in their purchasing power and living standard when the Kroner collapsed.
I think we need to restructure the debts but stay in the Euro.
What killed our economy was insane banking practices and massive property bubble. The Euro only created the conditions that allowed it to happen. Nobody forced our banks to lash cash into property.
Our government and regulatory authorise didn’t act to prevent disaster. They actually incentivised more and more house building even when the imminent collapse was obvious to many!
Imagine how different things might be if we’d borrowed to invest in say R&D and high tech industry instead of overpriced houses in the middle of bogs!
good points david
you say restructure do you mean extend the term?
do you not think writedown/writeoff is worth negociating as the circumstances of the bailout are still up for debate.
i believe myself that loading a private debt onto a soverign nation is in the least dodgy and i would love to get a look at the triochet letters.
the debt we are repaying while it is being sustained is hampering our growth to the point of crippling us.
if we could stop our fittest and finest leaving and create jobs to repay our mortgages we have a better chance surely
Great to see these continued positive vibes on this forum…..(end of sarcasm)
have your say