‘Grenfell-type fire risk’ apartments paid for by HBFI
A CONTROVERSIAL social housing development that a whistleblower claimed posed a ‘Grenfell-type fire risk’ was funded by Home Building Finance Ireland (HBFI).
HBFI provided the money for the €20m redevelopment of the Halliday Mills complex in Dundalk, in a deal that saw it bought by a publicly funded social housing charity, Cooperative Housing Ireland (CHI).
Halliday Mills was originally built by former IRA hunger striker and Priory Hall developer Tom McFeely, when it was known as Ard Dealgan.
But the building was abandoned in 2009 when Louth County Council served a closure notice and moved residents out
due to the building’s non-compliance with fire regulations.
In 2021, HBFI funded Randalswood Developments Ltd to redevelop the building’s 74 apartments for use as social housing by CHI.
Randalswood is owned by the McGrath Group – led by one-time convicted fraudster PJ McGrath.
Mr McGrath’s conviction goes back to 1996 when he then admitted stealing electricity worth IR£40,000 through fraud, at a flat complex he owned.
The McGrath Group has also been involved in various controversies in recent years, including the eviction of several squatters at a development site on Prussia Street in Dublin’s north inner city, and adverse rulings of the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB).
After the renovations by the McGrath Group, CHI moved tenants back into Halliday Mills – against the advice of its own senior project manager who raised numerous safety concerns.
In a series of protected disclosures, the senior project manager claimed Halliday Mills represented a serious fire risk.
‘I resigned from the Halliday Mills project on November, 29, 2021, in protest at the defendant’s handling of the project, and at the purchase of such unsafe housing, as well as the apparent failure to adequately engage with my concerns,’ the whistleblower claimed in a court affidavit.
‘I believe that some of the defects have the potential to cause a fire to spread in a manner similar to the fire which devastated the Grenfell tower block in London in 2017.
‘Tenants continue to live in the property and the necessary remedial works have not been carried out.’
Earlier this year the Irish Mail on Sunday revealed the whistleblower sought and was granted an emergency court order to prevent his dismissal for raising these concerns.
CHI, which contested the claims, then settled the case in a deal involving a nondisclosure agreement.
The settlement means the whistleblower has been silenced and the matter will no longer be aired in public.
But the concerns he raised are already the subject of complaints to the Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority and the Charities Regulator.
This week the MoS asked HBFI to detail the measures it takes to ensure that homes provided through its funding are safe.
In response, a spokesperson said : ‘HBFI imposes a condition on all loans that borrowers must demonstrate their compliance with all applicable legal, planning and regulatory requirements.’