Construction mistakes made during the Celtic Tiger could see taxpayers landed with a bill of around €2.8bn, a report has found.
Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien instructed a working group to examine the issue and it concluded that potentially 80% of all apartments built between 1993 and 2013 have some kind of defect.
The problems range from fire safety and water ingress to structural defects that could cost anything between €2,500 and €80,000 per unit.
The report also considered funding options and is reported to have decided that state grants are the most practical option:
“It’s a big tab,” Karl Deeter of Onlineapplication.com explained to The Pat Kenny Show.
“Just to put it in perspective, €3bn euro is basically the entire transport budget for the entire country for the whole year and it’s just to deal with this one thing.
“There was a special working group set up and they were looking at maybe low-cost long-term loans, a levy on the construction industry, state funded grants or tax relief.
“What’s come about though is that the long-term loans are seen as the best way but they’re not being seen as practical. So state grants or funding is recognised as a preferable option.
“So basically everyone’s going to pay for the mistakes of several people.”
Last week the Government passed legislation pertaining to the mica redress scheme - which will compensate tens of thousands of people in the west whose homes were built using defective building materials.
For Mr Deeter, the Government should step back and consider whether it should always step in and provide an answer:
“Every time something happens for which there is no easy answer, it somehow becomes the responsibility of the Government and we have politicians who believe that too - and that’s actually dangerous,” he complained.
He continued:
“This is a well-versed walk that we go on in public discourse. No-one’s going to be found responsible but everyone’s going to have to pay.
“And I do feel for people in this situation so I’m not trying to not empathise with them.
“What I would be saying though, is that the person who [bought] something 30 years ago, they can probably afford this themselves and if they can’t, okay, maybe have something to help them?
“But I think this needs to be very, very targeted because every penny that goes into this doesn’t go into child palliative care.
“It doesn’t go into cancer, it doesn’t go into schools. It doesn’t go into all these other things that are important.”
Main image: A construction worker. Image: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews
