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If you bought a doll’s house in a shop, and you got home and found out that it was a fire hazard, you’d be allowed to bring it back immediately and repaired for you. But it’s not the same for us: we were sold a property in good faith, we bought it in good faith, and it has a lot of deficiencies.- Killian Ryan, resident of Beacon South Quarter apartments.
THE RESIDENTS OF Beacon South Quarter apartments have a decision to make: pay thousands of euros to fix structural problems with the buildings they own, or refuse.
These problems are causing water ingress in some of the apartments; while other deficiencies are classed as non-compliant with fire safety issues – issues that residents have been reporting for some time.
On Wednesday 18 January, residents were sent invoices to fix the problems, and a notice that at an AGM meeting next Monday, they’ll be given all the information about the problems and asked to vote on whether the apartment owners will agree to pay.
The have no idea what they’ll have to pay – they’re only going off media reports ranging from a total bill of €9 million to €31 million: one resident says the potential invoice could be for €10-15,000 per owner.
Owner
Killian Ryan bought one of the 800 Beacon South Quarter apartments in 2008 under the affordable housing scheme.
Killian says that 20% of the apartments are owner-occupiers, property company Ires Reit own around a quarter, and the rest is divided up between the county council, Cluid housing scheme, Circle voluntary housing scheme, and investors.
They’re really nice apartments, well-kitted out, a facade, lovely interior, decent enough size. Ours is a two-bed apartment on a single floor, but some are one- and three-bedroom apartments, others are duplexes.
He says that water has been leaking into his living room for the last five years, and that they’ve been pursuing it with the insurance company – hoping that they’ll pay. It was only when there was an investigation into the development of the apartment last year that they started stripping walls and realised “bits were missing”.
Monday meetings
It was only when the invoice came through that some of the residents decided to host a meeting to decide if they would go public and contact politicians and press.
They stuck posters in the lifts, set up a website, and used the existing Facebook Page to spread the message. At first residents were concerned that if the news got out their property prices would fall – but after the news was leaked to the media before the first meeting was even held, it was too late to go back.
They met last Monday and again this Monday, ahead of next week’s vote – and although Killian says most of the 120 people who turned up to this week’s meeting seemed to oppose the charge, he’s not sure it will be rejected.
Yesterday, the Irish Times reported that Ires Reit, which is the largest single owner of apartments at Beacon South Quarter, plans to vote in favour of the charge.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he says. “Our neighbours, our friends, we’re all in shock. I’m getting married this year – I don’t know where the money will come from.”
Killian says they’ve been told the problems aren’t so bad that they’ll have to evacuate but changes are needed to be fire safety compliant and for the structural soundness of the building.
Each block has a different set of problems and a different price tag attached to it.
A lot of residents have come forward to tell their story not because they think it will help them, but because they don’t want this kind of thing to happen again.
“I thought we had a government to govern over these things, to oversee development. But developers are just self-regulating,” Killian says.
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Why is it always a “joint” operation…. ? Could they not just say combined ?
@Aurelio Na Fodhla: Only when it’s not about cannabis
@Aurelio Na Fodhla: I always have a wee smile when they use the phrase “joint operation”. I remember a headline from one of the evening papers years ago that read, “Firefighters stoned in Dolphins Barn”. At least they weren’t drunk !
Just think of the tax revenue if it was legal and controlled in the same manner as alcohol & cigarettes. Added benefit of not having to deploy gards & customs agents wasting time over something they cannot eradicate. If the found €2million worth you can be sure there is €200million they didn’t find.
Senseless comment, the majority of people who consume cannabis (or alcohol) are not addicts and enjoy their lives just as much as anyone else. End the stigma please.
Only here for the comments – Bonus
Points will be awarded for originality.
Hash heads pxxs heads whatever else.
Can Irish people go for a swim.
Just enjoy life without adicitions
@The Grand Nagus: hash heads? Nice 1970′s terminology there.
@JustBEERbarry: Sneer all you like, Those hash heads wreaked havoc in the 70’s! YOU WEREN’T THERE MAN
@JustBEERbarry:
Whatever you want to call it its addiction.
I lived with stoners years ago.
Terrible experience.
Paranoid bunch.
@The Grand Nagus: Not as bad as a house of drinkers. Nothing worse!
@Tomo:
True but it all addiction
We have a lovely country..
Go out and enjoy it
Its ten times better without been pxxs
Or stonned
@Alan Biddulph: if you remember it you weren’t there either man!!
@The Grand Nagus: Tell that to the thousands of people who glorify coffee addiction. Caffeine is a lot less healthy than a joint at night!
@Tomo:
Ahh the denial.
OK don’t drink coffee also.
@The Grand Nagus: swim away but just cause people have a pint or a joint doesn’t make em junk!es or pi55 heads. Judgy Judgy like……
@The Grand Nagus: so says the bloke with an addiction to talk absolute ball ox.
@The Grand Nagus: so tell us, were you always this judgemental?
@Tomo: Total nonsense
@Christopher Byrne: what’s nonsense? The part about the house full of drinkers? Or caffeine being an addiction? Or caffeine being more harmful than cannabis? I’m sure you have a watertight arguement.
@The Grand Nagus: sounds like you’re addicted to the oul swimming there. Probably a water-head. Dihydrogen monoxide addiction is a serious issue but the guards are afraid of taking on Big Uisce. I’d say you couldn’t go more than a few days without a hit of H2O or the withdrawals would be the end of you. And you’d probably say you’re just a recreational user. But really it’s all addiction.
@Mac Muinteoir: you’re right, if it’s sea swimming this individual is engaging in its 100% addictive.
I know several daily swimmers and they tell me its an addiction, a buzz.
Funnily enough all these seaswimmers I know also like a pint and/or a smoke too. Huh, weird. Or maybe he likes to refer to it as something else not quite as judgemental as an addiction/buzz.
€2 million for that amount is ridiculous. Do they actually just make up a random figure they think will sound good?
@D: it’s priced per ten spot
@D: No “quarter” given when announcing big busts it seems!
Following the who what where when and how model of journalism I found this article lacking in substance. The lack of detail was astonishing. No Garda or official was named. The place where the drugs were discovered was anonymised. There was no sense that anyone was identified as owning the drugs and so would be liable for prosecution. That might have made a difference to their ongoing illegal activity. It’s like a press release from the Revenue was elevated into an article without ever passing through the interrogation of a journalist’s brain to examine the significance of the information as news.
@feargal ‘2 metres’ de cantuin: covering an informers tracks methinks
Good that they’re finally breaking ground on the drugs that we see destroying lives on a daily bases, by that I mean Heroin, don’t see the same arguments from the usual ‘heads’ on those articles, mostly because they’re really only interested IN the argument, and twisting the screw on those it does matter too. Stay classy ya’ll
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