RIP Laura Buckley Noonan
Search
06 Sept 2025
Search
06 Sept 2025
Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content.
Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist.
If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter .
Support our mission and join our community now.
To continue reading this article, you can subscribe for as little as €0.50 per week which will also give you access to all of our premium content and archived articles!
Alternatively, you can pay €0.50 per article, capped at €1 per day.
Thank you for supporting Ireland's best local journalism!
The Government has announced a multi-million euro scheme to repair Celtic Tiger-era apartments, after it was revealed that thousands across the country were not built to standard.
Cabinet has agreed to draft legislation to support the remediation of apartments and duplexes with fire safety, structural safety and water ingress defects.
A working group report published in July found that up to 100,000 apartments and duplexes built between 1991 and 2013 were defective, with fire safety being the most prevalent issue.
The scheme is estimated to be worth between 1.5 billion and 2.5 billion euro.
A “whole building” approach will be taken, the Government said, ensuring common areas and shared spaces are also remediated where required to the relevant standard.
Speaking outside Government Buildings on Wednesday, Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien said that the scheme would be fully funded, and that “lessons have been learned” from the past.
“So, from the Government decision today, any work that is underway, or indeed is contracted, will be covered within the scope of this fully-funded scheme.
“We’ll use the mechanism of the owner management company to make the payments to the scheme. So there will be no one excluded from it, and there will be limitations within it but, obviously, if we’re to remediate an apartment block the full cost of that needs to be covered.
“Lessons have been learned and need to continue to be learned,” he added, saying that the regulations in place at the time were not “sufficient”.
“We would expect some payments to be made this year, depending on when applications are made, I would say more next year as the scheme is fully stood up.”
He said that the firms responsible for the defects in the apartment “do have a moral responsibility to contribute, no question of that”.
“We’ll look at all mechanisms to seek recourse or recompense for the State in relation to the cost that the State is going to bear in relation to this scheme.”
Subscribe or register today to discover more from DonegalLive.ie
Buy the e-paper of the Donegal Democrat, Donegal People's Press, Donegal Post and Inish Times here for instant access to Donegal's premier news titles.
Keep up with the latest news from Donegal with our daily newsletter featuring the most important stories of the day delivered to your inbox every evening at 5pm.
This publication supports the work of the Press Council of Ireland and Office of the Press Ombudsman, and our staff operate within the Code of Practice of the Press Council. You can obtain a copy of the Code, or contact the Council, at www.presscouncil.ie, Lo-call 1800 208 080 or email: info@presscouncil.ie.
