Defects: Living with the Legacy of the Celtic Tiger

by Eoin Ó Broin

All across Ireland, thousands of people are living in apartments with serious fire safety and structural defects. Some of these have made the news, many more have not. Living with the Legacy of the Celtic Tiger tells the horrifying story of these people and how they came to be trapped in dangerous homes. In this follow-up to Home , his hugely popular and acclaimed manifesto for public housing reform, Eoin Ó Broin reveals how decisions made by successive governments from the 1960s to the 1990s led to an alarmingly light touch building control regime. This regime, when combined with the hubris and greed of Celtic Tiger-era property development, allowed defective and unsafe properties to be built and sold in huge numbers to unsuspecting victims. Who was responsible? Why were they allowed to get away with it? And who will foot the bill to fix these potentially fatal defects? All these questions and more are answered in this hard-hitting and shocking investigative work.

Genres: Ireland

256 pages, Paperback

Published August 23, 2021

Reviews

[Ben Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book achieves what it sets out to do. It looks at the legacy of subpar building regulations, particularly in Dublin, on housing developments in the city. Although its very short, it packs in a lot of information and reads like it is longer than it is however because of its length, I would recommend leaving it a little while before buying it unless you are particularly interested as the price - 15/16 euro in most shops - is very steep for its length.

Compared to O'Broin's previous book Home this is far less overtly (party) political however it is written by a politician and it times this shines through.

A final point to make is that this book exclusively focuses on housing standards legislation and does not look at other regulatory irregularities during the Celtic Tiger period.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book.

[James Renaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book to better comprehend specific issues of the housing emergency in Ireland now and the perpetrators of these issues.