A group of apartment owners living with fire-safety or other defects in their Dublin homes are holding a 24-hour protest at Leinster House, calling for emergency interim measures to be made available.
Odette Doran from the 'Not Our Fault' Campaign said: "We are here today at our 24-hour protest to try to get the Minister (for Housing Darragh O'Brien) to commit to the funding that he promised us in January."
On 18 January Cabinet approved a "fully-funded" scheme to repair up to 100,000 Celtic Tiger-era apartments and duplexes with fire safety, structural safety and water ingress defects.
Interim safety measures for affected apartments were promised as part of the scheme, however, home owners demonstrating outside the Dáil today say five months later they are still waiting.
"We are asking the minister to step up with the emergency funding, emergency means emergency ... these are fire defects", Ms Doran said.
Aa a resident of the Crescent apartment complex in Park West in west Dublin Ms Doran said they were "hit with a bill of €68,000 per person (for remediation works), that just under €300 per week".
She said: "There's no way anyone could afford that, it's essentially another mortgage on top of a cost of living crisis on top of mortgage interest rates rising."
Barbara Allen said she felt "safer here, being out all night on the streets of Dublin" than she is sleeping in her own apartment complex, where inadequate fire-stopping measures have been identified.
Ms Allen lives with her daughter in an apartment in Hunterswood, in southwest Dublin, where residents were separately asked to pay for the removal of balconies that suffered from "structural issues".
She showed RTÉ News photos of bars now across the doors that used to open onto the balcony.
She said: "We are now in a situation where the point of egress in case of fire is now gone, so if there is a fire in my building ... I am on the fourth floor, so the only way out is to go down the stairs through a burning building.
"It's really serious, we have no money, all of our resources have been spent on professional fees and we have had all sorts of fire reports done and there's just nothing left."
Speaking today Minister for Housing Darragh O'Brien said that he wanted to see interim funding in place "as quickly as I can" but added that he had to "base the interim measures on the best approach".
"I do expect to have the interim funding in place this year as I said I would," Mr O'Brien said, while work continues on the primary legislation required for the operation of the full remediation scheme.
Mr O'Brien said that local authorities and chief fire officers had been working on the scope and standard of that interim work.
Following January's announcement, an expert group of industry professionals, local authority fire services, the Housing Agency and the Department of Housing was established.
A spokesperson for the department confirmed that "it is expected to be in a position to publish a draft Code of Practice for public consultation in the coming weeks".
A draft of the Code of Practice seen by RTÉ News sets out that "the implementation of interim fire safety measures will be necessary to allow occupants to safely remain in their homes during this period pending the completion of remedial work to the entire building" and "the level of interim fire safety measures required should be established by fire safety assessment, which must be undertaken by a competent/suitably qualified person".
While it said that such measures may not be needed in all cases "where interim fire safety measures are indicated by fire safety assessment, they should be considered for immediate implementation".
The types of interim measures mentioned include the "provision of an enhanced fire detection and alarm system; that all entrance doors to individual apartments, and doors that open onto escape corridors and stairways, are fire resisting and effectively self-closing against any latch resistance; and temporary fire resisting construction".
Spokesperson for the Construction Defects Alliance Pat Montague said that the expert working group completed its work on 30 May and called for the Government to "act now" and publish the report.
Mr Montague said: "That will give the Government the green light to set up a Temporary Administrative Scheme because there is funding in place, if the Government gives the go ahead ... we could have funding for the role out interim measures by September of October of this year."
In the meantime, Chartered Building Surveyor Kevin Hollingsworth said that overall the industry has seen a slowdown in remediation works after the announcement of the scheme in January, despite ongoing safety concerns.
He said: "We've seen in projects that we've been working on and we've heard it from contractors that we work with that a lot of works have been paused to reflect and see how this scheme will develop."
A department spokesperson said that to "ensure important life-safety works are not paused, remediation works related to fire safety defects, entered into or commenced [on] January 18th, 2023, will form part of the remediation scheme, subject to terms and conditions".
In January the minister also said that the Government had "approved the principle of allowing remediation costs already incurred or levied to be covered under the legacy defects scheme, within the scope and defined parameters of said scheme".
However last month The Irish Times reported that documents released under Freedom of Information showed a number of officials had opposed the provision of State support where remediation works had already been carried out.
Today the Minister for Housing restated his position on this saying that "retrospective work would be covered".
A spokesperson for the minister said "Minister O'Brien has responded and listened to Homeowners' Representative Groups and agreed to provide for retrospective payments for works undertaken already.
"This measure is in the interests of equity so as to avoid unfairly punishing home owners who acted to remediate their homes already."
