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Council warns remaining Priory Hall residents

Fire safety concerns have forced residents to leave the Priory Hall
Fire safety concerns have forced residents to leave the Priory Hall

Dublin City Council has said any residents who remain in the Priory Hall apartment complex in Donaghmede in Dublin after today, in defiance of the High Court order, are taking on themselves the risk to their own lives and the lives of members of their households in doing so.

A spokesperson for the council said the local authority would continue to accommodate residents at the Regency Hotel in Whitehall for as long as necessary.

Some residents have moved into Bewleys Hotel, just off the N32.

Dublin City Council is currently viewing the properties on the list provided by NAMA to assess their suitability for accommodation.

It says all sources of accommodation will be looked at for the provision of temporary housing for the residents.

The last of the Priory Hall residents were expected to move out before this evening's evacuation deadline ordered due to the fire risk.

Private contractors have started to carry out remedial works on the apartment blocks ahead of tomorrow's High Court hearing.

120 rooms at the Regency Hotel are now occupied by residents of the complex while the city council finds alternative housing.

Residents' representatives met with six different mortgage lenders today to try and get repayments frozen until the safey issue is resolved.

Environment Minister Phil Hogan has said officials from his department will also meet the financial institutions to help with the situation.

In the Dáil, Government intervention to force lenders to suspend mortgages for the homeowners was ruled out.

Minister of State for Finance Brian Hayes said the Finance Minister, Michael Noonan, did not have the power to force lenders to alter contracts.

He suggested that the residents themselves talk to their lenders. In the case of an unsatisfactory response, he said they could take the matter up with the Financial Services Ombudsman.

Asking of himself whether he would pay his mortgage in such circumstances, he said he would not.

Minister Hayes was responding to a Topical Issues question from Independent Deputy Mick Wallace.

Mr Wallace said an engineer or architect, approved by the bank, must have signed off on the building prior to the loan being given.

Deputy Wallace said the banks had a responsibility and given that some of them had been bailed out by the taxpayer, they had a moral obligation to help.