DDDA may face scrutiny over safety at Longboat Quay

The Dublin Docklands Development Authority, which is in wind-down mode, is up before the Dáil Public Accounts Committee today, where it may or may not be asked about the Longboat Quay (above) residential development, where low building standards have created concerns about fire safety.

The Bernard McNamara apartment complex was built in the latter stages of the property boom and the company involved subsequently went into receivership. As a result, the transfer of the common areas in the development, which would normally have been transferred from the DDDA to the management company associated with the apartments, was delayed.

Structural repair

It is accepted by the authority that it will fund at least some of the structural work needed to bring the development up to the required standards. What the total cost will be, and how it will be split between the DDDA and the owners of the apartments, is still to be resolved. The owners of the 300 apartments have to wait.

A review is under way to establish exactly what work will be needed to rectify problems with the smoke vents and possibly other issues. Deficiencies with the fire alarm system at one stage brought the apartments close to being vacated, a turn of events only avoided by use of fire marshals until the system was fixed.

It is not quite Priory Hall, the disastrous Donaghmede apartment complex that had to be vacated such were the concerns about fire safety. The resolution of the faults in that complex, built by Thomas McFeely and Larry O’Mahony, is set to cost Dublin City Council north of €27 million.

The DDDA is on the way to being subsumed into Dublin City Council, so any costs arising from the Longboat development are likely to end up on its in-tray.

Meanwhile, residents of other boom- era apartment complexes must be putting their heads on their pillows at night, torn between worrying about fire safety or a sudden fall in the value of their homes – similar concerns, no doubt, to those of some of the council’s senior executives.