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Dublin: 11 °C Wednesday 19 June, 2013

Priory Hall: ‘The Tenements of the Boom’

One ex-resident went back to the doomed development last weekend. This is what she found.

Priory Hall, as it looked after works on the complex ended in November 2011.
Priory Hall, as it looked after works on the complex ended in November 2011.
Image: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland

THE RECENT HEAVY rainfall saw one ex-resident of Priory Hall make an unwelcome but necessary trip back.

Having experienced flooding in her apartment before fire safety issues forced the complex to be evacuated, she had some idea as to what to expect.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie, she spoke of a time before the development had hit the headlines – both domestic and international; a time when things still weren’t as they should have been.

“When I lived there, I’d be afraid to go home at night if it had been raining because my bedroom would always be flooded,” she said.

Despite her apartment having long since become uninhabitable, she still feels a need to check on what is still hers in the eyes of the banks.

“The watermarks on the walls and the ceiling get worse every time I go in,” she said, remembering back to last weekend.

The communal areas aren’t much better, as the images below show.

When the communal car park floods, water streams through the gaps in the ground-floor windows.

“Nobody has been working on this [Priory Hall] since November 2011 and even then, the works were related to fire safety safety issues,” she said.

The problem is much, much greater than that.

Priory Hall - stairs

Describing the initial headlines which spoke only of fire safety issues, the let-down owner says that “it will take a lot more than a couple of firing extinguishers to fix the issues”.

Mould is also taking hold of the complex, as the image below shows.

Priory Hall - mould

These images, uploaded to the Support The Priory Hall Residents Facebook page, accompany the new name that residents have given the development – ‘The Tenements of the Boom’.

“It’s a fairly apt description to be honest,” said spokesperson Graham Usher.

In the years to come, this will be an example of just what developers were allowed to get away with.

Read: Priory Hall residents exempt from property tax, but problems persist >

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Comments (25 Comments)

  • A monument to greed, corruption and downright recklessness.

    Reply
    • And sadly how many more are out there that haven’t been discovered?
      Pyrite? Will anyone be held accountable?

      I won’t hold my breath!

      Reply
    • No Shane, they took out a loan I’m good faith that the product they were buying was fit for purpose, due to the compliance certs on the building. Now it has been shown that the certs were worthless, therefore the product they bought WAS ‘not fit for purpose’ and under Irish law they should be entitled to a repair, replacement or refund. Any court should deem the ‘repair’ effort to be an unmitigated disaster… Therefore they should be entitled to one of the two other alternatives.
      DCC, the builder, and the insurance company of the RIAI architect who provided the certs should all be held jointly responsible. But of course our county has this ridiculous 1% rule that means the builder can walk away.

      Reply
    • And an example of how ordinary citizens are disregarded by this state. Along with workers trying to get their last pay packet, families forced to emigrate, unaffordable medicines, commercial rates for charities, unredeemable vouchers…etc…etc

      The important things are that banks are recapitalized, bondholders paid and that the system that facilitated such carnage on ordinary lives is restored to its former glory!

      Reply
    • They bought off plans from a dodgy developer. Their fault. They created the ignorant demand that enabled guys like McFeeley and Ahern to prosper.

      Reply
    • Spot on Adrian.
      Not fit for purpose.
      Just like the rest of the cowboy built, deathtrap rubbish that was thrown together in the boom.
      and
      Just like the poisoned, deathtrap,doomed to fail, boomtime mortgages,that were recklessly dished out by the corrupt/criminal bankers who destroyed this country.
      Where is the duty of care in all this??

      Reply
    • Why not blame the people that walked into a bank and said “give me 300k, I want to give an ex ira man money for badly built shoebox”

      Reply
    • What are you gonna blame next Mule??
      Are you gonna blame the victims of the Catholic Church Pedophiles,
      instead of blaming the Pedophiles or the politicians (some of whom are still in politics) for allowing the Pedophilia to continue unchallenged??

      Tens of thousands of lives have been lost to suicide.
      Hundreds of thousands of native Irish people have Emigrated.
      Millions of lives have been negatively affected.
      And our country has been destroyed by these corrupt/criminal bankers.

      Stop trying to blame the victims in this Blatant Financial Genocide Travesty.

      Reply
    • The Irish government never did have a problem in the past, with standing by and allowing its people to be abused by large wealthy organisations.
      Looks like there at it again.

      Reply
    • again its the people who purchase in good faith that pays for greed i for 1 will not blame the people who bought these apartments thinking that they are making a home for their children are they wrong NO they are not wrong. should they have to put up with this criminal act by the builder NO this government and previous governments have been cahoots with cowboy builders for far to long

      Reply
  • The Government has a political, moral and social duty to purchase each apartment and fully to compensate the owners. Arguably, there is also a legal duty so to do.

    Priory Hall demonstrates the gross corruption of the previous Government and the moral blindness of the current Government.

    It was the tripartitide alliance of politicians, bankers and developers who created an utterly corrupt property market and intentionally ensured a complete absence of quality control and an absence of regulatory enforcement.

    There was no protection for home buyers on any level. HomeBond was and is a total scam.

    I don’t have any connection with Priory Hall but nothing will be done unless the owners do something drastic and radical. That will break the law, laws which failed the owners, it would lose public sympathy for a time but being nice and law abiding is a poor survival strategy in a society such as Ireland.

    There is a political, moral, social and arguably legal duty to compensate the owners fully for this dreadful sandal but there is no will to do so and the current Government will have to be forced to act.

    If we truly supported each other, we would march en masse to support the victims of this utter scandal.

    Reply
    • John 02/02/13 #

      I agree with everything you just said. I feel that the reason the government are ignoring this issue is because they know that there is more then just the one priory hall and if they do anything to help these residents that the flood gates will open. The amount of sh1tholes that were permitted to be built in this country by creep developers in the last decade is unreal, wrong and a national disgrace

      Reply
    • @ John, you are absolutely right! The advice now being given to many management companies in Apartment developments is to stay quite just in case forced evacuations are imposed. Most apartment construction since 1998 was gerry built. if one concession is made in the case of one apartment development, the floodgates open.

      Reply
  • Why oh why doesn’t every resident simply just hand the keys back to the bank and walk away.
    Why they are allowing this ruin their lives is beyond me.
    They will never be able to sell on these apartments anyway.
    My heart goes out to them.

    Reply
    • They took out the loan , so they have to repay it.!!
      My heart goes out to them tho.! All because of that gready bastard..!!

      Reply
    • @shane as long as it doesnt affect you, the law is the law, god forbid if you actually had to help someone!

      Reply
    • @Shane
      McFeely is only partially to blame.
      In a way, he is only a minor symptom of the root cause.
      Namely Blatant Corruption and Criminality in the Banks, Government and Senior Civil Service.
      The Banks dished out money to anyone in the boom.
      The government made sure they did so.
      And the senior civil servants rubber stamped every dodgy bit of paperwork put under their noses.
      Yet the victims are forced to pick up the bill?
      Well You Can Shove That Bill Where the Sun Don’t Shine!!!

      Reply
  • BelleB 02/02/13 #

    I feel so sorry for the buyers every time I drive past. I cant understand how they are not protected by some consumer law or other. I also find it ironic that they were evacuated due to fire concerns as the premises next door has fuel and gas cylinders stacked very close to its back wall.

    Reply
    • It’s not that difficult to understand the consumer law around property purchase. Anybody spending 100K s of loaned money should understand it very well.
      Did they understand the risks and limitations of homebond insurance? Did they know the financial status of the developer, the only person they could sue?

      Reply
    • Well said mule just shows with all the thumbs down on all you comments what a sad bunch of nevere never land fools some people are , buyer beware , typical irish poor us moan on because they borrowed up to their necks for a pile of crap , had they all done their homework this could have been avoided you get what you pay for and most of these buyers thought they knew it all , no sympathy whatsoever for these idiots

      Reply
  • The people of Ireland should adopt this as their cause for the year ahead and fight and fight until these people get treated fairly.

    Reply
    • @ June, you are so right. Just because we are lucky enough not to be affected means that we should appreciate our good luck by helping those who were so badly betrayed. We have to look out for each other.

      99.99 per cent of the posters here are respecters of the law. I am not a respecter.

      There needs to be a peaceful and well organised group to occupy Priority Hall in rotation, say 5 at a time, no damage, caution about fire and in peaceful civil disobedience. There can be no forceful entry and it would need to be well administered.

      If An Garda Siochana intervene, this will draw publicity. Video cameras can show what happens. That would only be the first step. After that there would be a progressive campaign. I appreciate that this will annoy many .

      My great grandfather served 5 jail sentences for peaceful Land League protest and agitation. Ultimately, land reform was introduced.

      Polite communications to elected representatives only go so far.

      Reply
  • The Mule is the alter ego for Bertie Ahern.

    Reply
  • To think that the man responsible has just got promoted and rewarded by getting one of the biggest jobs in Ireland with an enormous budget. Who else in the normal commercial world would be rewarded having behaved so appallingly in his position as Dublin City Manager. He allowed Priory hall go ahead even though Mc Feely was suspended on another site for breaching H&S rules. He even bough 26 or 28 apartments for the council without inspecting them. This is nearly criminal what’s happening to the elite few in Ireland while others suffer dreadfully from his inaction.

    Reply
  • Has nothing solid yet been done for these families
    Mick wallis sits in the dial as a TD
    Not a bother
    Owing millions to the exchequer
    While families owning a few thousand are in jail or under threats of homelessness
    It’s like the famine all over again
    But we are screwed by our own this time
    Hit the streets people
    And burn Leinster house to the ground
    We where better off under English rule
    God forgive me for ever having to say that:(

    Reply

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