Opinion

Housing boom masked serious problems

 Frank Daly, chairman of Nama
 Frank Daly, chairman of Nama  Frank Daly, chairman of Nama

When did the boom actually end? Seven years ago? Eight? Officially the downturn began in September 2008 when the Republic became the first country in the Eurozone to officially enter a recession. But the writing was on the wall long before then.

Perhaps the better question is when do we stop paying for the boom? The legacy of Ireland's collective property madness is still clear to see in sprawling ghost estates, joblessness and rising emigration. Except perhaps the true cost is only just starting to emerge.

Last week 900 residents of Longboat Quay apartments in Dublin's Docklands were told that the homes that they had lived in for years, many with young families, were now deemed to be a fire hazard. Either they will have to pay a total of two million euros to have their homes made safe, or they will have to evacuate.

The case has clear comparisons with the Priory Hall debacle in north Dublin. The development, built by former IRA hunger striker Thomas McFeely, was evacuated in 2011 after it was deemed to be a firetrap. Another major developer, Bernard McNamara, built the Longboat apartments in 2006. But because McNamara and McFeely later went bankrupt, residents cannot chase them for compensation since building insurance does not cover poor construction work. McNamara, whose bankruptcy was discharged last year, is now back in business.

During the boom years in the Republic developers could "self-certify" that a premises complied with safety regulations. In retrospect, "self-certification" seems ridiculous - rather like asking a fox to swear he has no interest in chickens. And there was no real onus on developers to prove their properties were completely sound. Surveying expert Kevin Hollingsworth has suggested that "light touch regulation" in the Republic meant there was no requirement for inspectors to lift floorboards and examine whether the correct safety measures were in place. In effect, he said, the regulatory system meant that inspectors could not see 'under the skin' of a building to check if it had been properly fire-proofed.

Regulations in the Republic have been drastically tightened up, but problems seen in Priory Hall and Longboat Quay could be repeated across hundreds of developments built during the boom. The revelations, while depressing, did not come as a surprise. When I studied in Dublin more than a decade ago, the two rented flats I shared had serious damp problems and poor ventilation. Over time, black mould slowly crept up the bathroom walls and into the bedrooms. In the end, the only alternative was to leave - an option people who bought their homes in badly-constructed developments do not have.

The truth is that we are not just paying for buildings which were constructed too quickly and without proper care. Daily revelations about the £1.3 billion sale of Nama's Northern Ireland loan book have raised disturbing questions about possible links between powerful businessmen and our political leaders. Committees on both sides of the border are continuing to investigate claims that a group of well-connected people stood to benefit from the sale. None of us know what these investigations will finally reveal, but it has already become very clear that a small group of people linked to Nama in the north also had close links with some senior politicians.

Nama's chairman Frank Daly has insisted that "no pressure from any source, north or south, political or otherwise influenced the sale". Perhaps he'll forgive the electorate on both sides of the border for wanting proof. "Self-certification" didn't work in the building trade and it does not work in politics.

It feels as though, finally, we are slowly getting a glimpse of what lies under the skin of the north's great and powerful. And it is likely that what is eventually revealed will not be pretty. Soon we may come to the conclusion that some of those who govern us, while superficially sound, are ultimately a public hazard.