Government announces scheme to reimburse owners of defective Celtic Tiger apartments | BreakingNews.ie

The Government is to set up a pilot scheme that will reimburse owners of defective Celtic Tiger-era apartments for costs to carry out repair work.

The scheme is estimated to be worth €2.5 billion euro, which will fund remediation works and repair defective homes.

Between 62,500 and 100,000 apartments and duplexes built between 1991 and 2013 are thought to be defective, with fire safety being the most prevalent issue.

Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien has given Cabinet ministers a pilot plan for redress to retrospective payments.

He met with a number of residents on Tuesday afternoon, informing the group that applications for the scheme will open in the coming weeks.

“We’ll be working through the Housing Agency, and the unit that we’ve set up in the Housing Agency, to inform the terms of reference of that,” Mr O’Brien told reporters.

“It’s a good day for many affected residents.

“We reckon about 100,000 properties across the country have been affected.

“About a third of them, work has already been completed.

“That’s effectively what we’re looking at today, we will have a handful of ‘pathfinder’ arrangements to inform us and create the formula for the repayments to be made.”

He added: “The first of those schemes on interim fire defects, we were issuing grant approval, I expect the work actually to commence on two of those projects probably next week, or the week after.

“We’ve agreed with the representative groups of residents, like the Apartment Owners Network and the Construction Defects Alliance, to start them on a pathfinder basis, so we can learn through that process.

“The first schemes under the government arrangement of remediation are actually starting pretty much right now.

“I won’t give you the number of developments, but they’re not insignificant either.

“We would expect those works to start in the coming weeks, and that will be focused specifically on fire safety and the remediation of interim fire defects.

“I brought the general scheme to government in relation to the overall scheme a number of weeks ago and I would expect that legislation to be published very shortly.”