Court resolves Dublin council evacuation action

Body brought proceedings due to ‘serious’ fire safety concerns in city premises

A legal action aimed at having residents evacuated from a building in Dublin's north inner city due to "serious" fire safety concerns has been resolved at the High Court.

Dublin City Council brought proceedings in relation to a property at Kellys Row, Dublin 1, including 20 Dorset Street, which contains a number of flats.

The four storey building is accessed via Kellys Row. A retail unit on the ground floor of 20 Dorset Street is not affected by the order.

The proceedings were brought against the owners of the property, Frank Chatham, of Arch Villas, Greystones, Co Wicklow, and Joseph Simpson, of Tara Green, Ballymoney, Co Wexford, who were served with a fire safety notice in respect of the building on March 27th last.

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They previously consented to the order sought by the council.

Yesterday, when the matter was briefly mentioned before the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, he was informed that while the order requiring evacuation of residents from the premises is to remain in place, the proceedings were at an end.

The effect of the order is that the building cannot be occupied by residents until all the fire safety requirements have been met.

Karen Denning BL, for the council, said the parties had reached an agreement and no order for costs was required.

Fire brigade

The High Court had heard that fire brigade officers had dealt with three incidents at the building since October 2014. It also heard that a fire safety notice took effect last March prohibiting residential use of the premises until specified measures had been taken to the satisfaction of the fire authority

When the building was inspected on May 11th, there was no evidence of any fire safety measures at the building, the council claimed.

The risk to persons in the event of a fire was “so serious” that use of the building should be immediately prohibited until measures outlined in the fire safety notice were taken to reduce the risk to a reasonable level, the council claimed.

The court also heard that Mr Simpson had written on May 1st that the tenants were in the process of being moved from the premises.

Mr Simpson also alleged 95 per cent of the items in the fire safety notice had been covered in renovations in 2007, outstanding issues were being rectified and the fire brigade would be kept up to date.

Mr Simpson, who represented himself, told the court he had no problem with the order but disputed claims that nothing was done by the owners since they were served with the fire safety notice.

He said the owners had asked the tenants to leave the building so they could comply with fire safety requirements and had also stopped collecting rent, but the tenants had remained on the premises.