Fresh calls for new Housing Minister to publish fire safety review
There has been fresh calls today for the new Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy, to publish a fire safety report on boom era houses that has still not been published 15 months after it was completed.
Speaking as the death toll in the tragic Grenfell Tower blaze in London continued to rise Dublin Bay North Social Democrats Cllr Cian O’Callaghan suggested the current ‘head in the sand’ attitude to fire risks in Irish housing developments cannot continue.
Cllr O’Callaghan aid he believed there are accidents waiting to happen in hundreds of housing developments up and down the country which have serious fire safety defects.
In a statement today Cllr Cian O’Callaghan suggested the new Minister had to take the issue in hand.
"As a first step, Minister Eoghan Murphy should publish the review that was commissioned by his department following a rapid spread fire that devastated a row of timber-framed houses in the new-build Millford Manor housing estate in March 2015.
“That review was supposed to lead to the development of a national framework to prevent similar accidents in the future in residential developments where concerns had been raised about fire safety. But the department ... has refused repeated requests for it to be published."
Cllr O’Callaghan went on to say that it was vital the department’s review is published so that remedial work can be carried out and new controls put in place.
"In the future, we need to do away with self-regulation and put in place independent building control inspection.
“In the housing estate fire in Millfield Manor in 2015, no residents were harmed because the fire broke out during daytime hours. The next time people may not be so lucky.”
