Louise and Mark O'Connor and their son Evan who had additional needs were found on Monday morning after sustaining fatal stab wounds
Search
30 Sept 2025
Search
30 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 Scottish Government’s housing minister has said he hopes the assessment of buildings with potentially combustible cladding will be finished by the end of the autumn.
Paul McLennan said assessments are due to begin shortly and work to remediate any unsafe cladding will start afterwards.
Earlier this week, the final report into the Grenfell Tower tragedy in London was published.
The near-1,700 page report made 58 separate recommendations, the implications of which are being considered by Scottish ministers, and concluded the deaths of all 72 people in the 2017 blaze were avoidable and had been preceded by “decades of failure” by government, other authorities and the building industry.
Speaking to the BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme, Mr McLennan said: “We have a ministerial group set up next week and I spoke to cladding colleagues about quickening the pace.
“We hope to get through the single building assessment process by the end of autumn.
“That then allows the building work to continue as quick as we possibly can.”
He said the Government is speaking to individual developers about when work can begin.
The Scottish Parliament passed the Cladding Remediation Bill earlier this year and the Government has an ongoing remediation programme.
Buildings within this programme with potentially unsafe cladding will be subject to a single building assessment to judge what work is needed.
Mr McLennan was also asked about Aberdeen City council becoming the latest local authority to declare a housing emergency.
He said the Government is investing £600 million in housing this year, but he will be pushing UK ministers for more investment in the sector.
He also said he recognises that having 10,000 children in temporary accommodation is “far too much”.
He added: “We’ve built 40% more social houses per head of population than England, 70% more than Wales.
“But we need to be doing more, I acknowledge that every time I’m asked that question.”
As well as building new homes, he said the Government is looking into acquiring void properties.
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.
