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By Michael Smith. It was never really  reasonable to rely on the sort of minds that took 15 years and up to €300m to deal with an ‘urgent’ examination of corruption in one county to then produce a radical and dynamic report. The Mahon Report nails easy targets among the rezoners: four dead dinosaurs (three FF, one FG), five red-toothed, long-sidelined rezoning machines (three FF and two FG) and, well, Olivia Mitchell (Olivia was done for inappropriate behaviour in one case only). But in the rezoning that I was opposing 20 years ago, Cherrywood near Cabinteely in Co Dublin, as with most of the rezonings, the findings fall short of implicating anyone who still could be described as the political establishment, though certainly it nails the corrupt developers behind the scheme – and dodgy Frank Dunlop. In 1993 the residents’ group I was involved with published  a leaflet wondering why local councillors who voted for Cherrywood in 1993, consigning the beauty-spot to concrete, had voted against it in 1992, with no change of circumstances.  Six of them. We said changing their minds was suspicious in 1993. That was before we knew that 60 politicians and community groups took money from the developer, Monarch Properties, which disbursed £167,000 in cheques and £161,000 in untraced cash. This was before several councillors were charged with corruption concerning the adjoining ‘Jackson Way’ site. Before Frank Dunlop (jailed over Jackson Way) who had taken over lobbying for the Cherrywood rezoning in late 1992 confessed himself a crook. Before we knew that Albert Reynolds had received a £5,000 donation that referred to the positive role of FF councillors in facilitating the rezoning. And before it was known John Bruton received £2,500 from Monarch for Fine Gael in between the crucial votes. Nine out of the 12 FG Councillors who would talk to their party’s  internal Inquiry in 2000 had received money from Monarch or Frank Dunlop (or both) in the 1991-1993 period when I was concerned with the Cherrywood vote. The tribunal didn’t even attempt to ask the councillors why they changed their minds after receiving donations from Dunlop or Monarch, though that didn’t stop it hauling them in and asking them endless other questions. The report almost entirely omits conclusions on this endless stream of dodgy evidence. Someone needs to do a survey of on what percentage of the evidence heard by the tribunal was never resolved by it at all. Even the Irish Times managed only a few sad paragraphs on most of the 13 Mahon modules. Lots of stuff about Quarryvale, but then again everyone can picture, and everyone hates, Bertie –  so that sells newspapers. The last outstanding attempt to call councillors to account seems to be the Irish  Independent’s attempts to hold Olivia Mitchell responsible for her “inappropriate” behaviour.  Readers will recall that Frank Dunlop claimed that  his purpose in giving IR£500 cash to Councillor Mitchell in November 1992 was in the context of her candidacy in the General Election and a request which had been made by Councillor Therese Ridge, who was a supporter of Quarryvale who had sought Councillor Mitchell’s support for Quarryvale. Mr Dunlop acknowledged that in his discussions with Councillor Mitchell regarding Quarryvale she had never intimated to him that her support for the Quarryvale rezoning project came at a ‘cost’ to Mr Dunlop. Mr Dunlop also stated that, while he could not say so specifically, it was ‘highly probable in the context of the imminence of the vote that Quarryvale was discussed in that conversation’ (a reference to his meeting with Councillor Mitchell on 10 November). The Tribunal was satisfied that, as a matter of probability, Councillor Mitchell received a sum of IR£500 from Mr Dunlop at the time of the 1992 General Election. It noted: “At that time Councillor Mitchell had had meetings with Mr Dunlop and Mr O’Callaghan in relation to the Quarryvale project, and was a supporter of that project. While the available evidence would suggest that Councillor Mitchell herself did not solicit the contribution, she nonetheless accepted it in the knowledge of Mr Dunlop’s close association with the Quarryvale rezoning project. In all those circumstances it was inappropriate for her to have accepted the cash donation”. What is strange is how self-evident it appears to have been to the tribunal that the payment could not be deemed to be in any way referable to Cherrywood, also being fronted by Frank Dunlop. Because, after she got the payment, Councillor Mitchell changed her mind on Cherrywood. Instead of opposing the development she supported it.  Twenty years on we do not know why.  The Mahon Tribunal certainly did not ask. Meanwhile attempts to censure Councillor Mitchell are being pre-emptively attacked in the press.  Minister Leo Varadkar is behind Councillor Mitchell. The Sunday Independent even reported that “The Government is facing an unwanted by-election in Dublin South if a Fine Gael internal inquiry into its members who were criticised by the Mahon tribunal censures the respected government backbencher Olivia Mitchell or withdraws the party whip from her. Though Ms Mitchell has not commented publicly on the inquiry,  sources close to her told the Sunday Independent: ‘Olivia will absolutely reject, to the point of going to the courts, any attempt to censure her’. The Sunday Independent has also learnt that Ms Mitchell is “incandescent with anger” over comments from party colleagues on how Fine Gael should discipline the Dublin South TD”. Take the inevitable media failure in combination with the governmental failure to implement the recommendations of Moriarty (it was promised every relevant government department would come up with a list of measures within four weeks), the continuing planning and environmental chaos countrywide (Dublin continues to sprawl, one-off housing accounts for more than fifty-per-cent of national housing, septic tanks go unmonitored and turf-cutters breach minimum EU standards, for example) and the failure of Fine Gael to curtail Denis O’Brien’s  grandstanding with its grandees; and, unfortunately, the optimal response to Mahon seems, once again, to be cynicism.

Treaty about currency stability and confidence – leading to growth YES By Lucinda Creighton: It’s all about generating confidence, so we can borrow and spend The Stability Treaty is about ensuring that we sustain a stable euro, which will lead to recovery and growth. It is about restoring confidence abroad and enhancing the influence we have worked so hard to rebuild with investors and our partners in Europe and the United States in particular. In recent months we have seen a welcome increase in significant job announcements from overseas investors.  Their decisions have been primarily due to Ireland’s renewed political and economic stability and above all the determination of the Irish people, despite great sacrifices, to restore Ireland’s economic health. The Treaty is also about good house-keeping – managing our debt and ensuring that over time, taxpayers’ money is spent not on servicing debt, but rather on vital public services and targeted growth initiatives. It is also about having an insurance policy and making sure we have access to the money that allows us to fund those public services and all aspects of government spending. The Government is determined to return to the financial markets next year. We are on target with our programme but we cannot control world events and the world economy. Markets and investors need to know there is a backup available to us in the form of the European Stability Mechanism (a fund of €7 billion) and we can only access that if we ratify this Treaty on 31 May. The Government is putting a huge amount of effort into this Referendum campaign.  We have launched the biggest ever Government information campaign, undertaking to send a copy of the Treaty to every single home in the country.  The Referendum Commission has already begun its work.  The website www.stabilitytreaty.ie has been launched.    In addition, the two Government parties, Fine Gael and Labour, will be campaigning and holding public information meetings all over the country. The Treaty itself is a technical document but it is fairly straightforward and relatively easy to read.  It may read as if it is something brand new, but in fact in policy terms,  it goes very little beyond what already exists at  EU level – the “Six pack” of five regulations plus one directive (in force since last December) and the other regulations which were adopted by finance ministers, including our own Minister Michael Noonan, in February. However there is some new material in the Stability Treaty.  The correction mechanism is triggered automatically if a country breaks its commitments under the ‘excessive deficit’ rule (Article 3(1)).  This means that, while in the past some countries (most particularly the large member states) simply ignored the stability rules governing the Euro currency, the Treaty will ensure that all members states are obliged to play by the rules, irrespective of whether they are big or small. The adoption of the Treaty is part of the process of getting Ireland back to where we ought to be.  It prevents a re-emergence either here or in any other Euro-zone country of the destabilising deficits which we have been running.  The result of all that has happened over the last number of years has been to remove our freedom of action as a nation and to put ourselves completely at the mercy of international financial markets.  Commentators talk all the time of “market sentiment” although the phenomenon  is not market sentiment, but rather a kind of group-think.  But the reason we became subject to the markets, to the extent that we had to retire from borrowing commercially and become dependent on outside regulators, was because our debt level was too high and our budget could not be made to balance.  Until we demonstrate that we are serious about tackling our debt and our deficit, no independent lender will be prepared to lend to Ireland.  So, to regain our economic independence, this Treaty is essential.  Without it, more austerity, not less, is the very likely outcome. This is the second time in thirty years that Ireland as a nation has dramatically mismanaged its finances and lost completely the appropriate relationship between income and expenditure.  The attraction of short-term political popularity always risks excessive recourse to borrowing to finance public spending, without any concern about the long-term cost of deficit financing. This time, when times were good, there was no commitment to effective fiscal management.  Spending increased and taxes were cut, leaving us with extraordinarily difficult choices to make once the good times ceased to roll.  During the boom times we should have been running a large enough surplus to support the economy when the downturn came. All the recent political changes in Europe are telling us is that there is a true weariness with the constant refrain on cutting deficits.  Some of them are just a refusal to face up to the truth and a hope that all the problems will go away as if wishing them away could make that happen.  But there is also recognition of an urgent need to bring growth back into the economy.  Ireland, as an open economy which exports so much of what it makes, needs not just internal growth, but growth in our major customer bases.  The Treaty won’t create growth. That is not what it was designed for and, let’s face it, no agreement or piece of paper can create growth, despite what some might have us believe.   However, the Treaty will create stability and confidence in the Euro, the currency we trade in.  This, of itself, is absolutely crucial for growth. The Treaty on its own will not solve the debt crisis.  But what is absolutely certain is that this is much less likely to happen if we do not have the Treaty. The commitment to sustainable financing is an essential part of any recovery package. I personally see Eurobonds (mutualisation of Euro-area debt) as one of the possible engines of growth in the medium term.  But if there

By Lenny Antonelli. The Government has launched a public consultation on building control following the high-profile evacuation of the Priory Hall development in north Dublin due to fire safety defects. But the proposed changes are nothing more than a paper exercise that will do little to boost the number of on-site building inspections. The new rules demand the submission of ‘certificates of compliance’ confirming a project meets the legal requirements of the building regulations. Drawings showing how a building complies will also have to be lodged. But it speaks volumes that such basic measures aren’t already in place. Following Priory Hall, environment minister Phil Hogan said the fact that Dublin City Council took the case to court “is a clear indication the Building Control Act is robust.” But if the act was robust, 240 people wouldn’t have moved into a faulty building, and the government wouldn’t be fixing the act six months later. Priory Hall highlighted the lack of on-site building inspection in Ireland. The Government requires local authorities to inspect just 12-15% of buildings. In 2010, the last year for which figures are available, the average local authority inspected just a quarter of buildings. Four local authorities failed to meet their target, and two, Wexford County Council and Waterford City Council,  inspected no buildings at all. But the Irish Home Builders Association, a division of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), defended Irish builders in the wake of Priory Hall, and said the system of self-certifying buildings had worked well. “Priory Hall is an exceptional case” director Hubert Fitzpatrick told Construction, the CIF magazine last October. But is it really? None of the houses examined for a study of 52 homes built between 1997 and 2002 complied fully with building regulations. The study was commissioned by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland but never published. Green building magazine Construct Ireland, of which I’m deputy editor, obtained it last year. The study examined the homes for compliance with regulations on energy efficiency, ventilation and “heat producing appliances”. Just one complied with energy-efficiency rules in full, almost half failed to meet the rules for heat producing appliances, and over 40% failed to minimum ventilation standards. In a 2005 study, the National Disability Authority found housing had a “poor level of compliance” with Part M of the building regulations, which deals with access for people with disability. These are the only two known studies that have looked at whether Irish housing complies with any parts of building regulations, according to the Department of Environment. Other stories undermine the idea that Priory Hall is an exception. Up to 20,000 homes may now be infected with pyrite, a mineral that can cause some construction materials to expand and crack if exposed to air and water. Socialist TD Joe Higgins described these homes as “exploding in slow motion.” Meanwhile in Balgaddy, west Dublin, up to 400 local authority houses built at the height of the boom are plagued by dampness, mould, cracking, leaks, and electrical and sewage faults.  And earlier this year, it was reported that up to 300 homes and apartments at Balmayne, north Dublin require expensive repairs due to fire safety faults. Though it’s little comfort to the people living there, these cases are the natural outcome of decades of under-regulation, lack of enforcement and lobbying against better building standards. Though the first draft was written in 1967, building regulations weren’t made law until more than 20 years later. As far back as 1978, Construction Industry Federation managing director Thomas Reynolds said making any insulation mandatory in new homes would be “entirely unrealistic and bureaucratic.” That same year, the Building Industry Council urged the Department of Environment to scrap its draft building regulations and re-write it “with a greater understanding of the impact such regulations will have on industry.” Then in 1982, Aidan McDonald, a Department of Environment official, told the Stardust disaster tribunal that the building industry had lobbied against a system of building inspection and approval. The department accepted the industy’s arguments and decided to move towards self certification, the Irish Times reported at the time. Building regulations finally came into force in the early 1990s, along with the self certification system that gave us Priory Hall. In 1998, an internal Department of Environment memo acknowledged energy-efficiency standards were inadequate and needed updating. “We don’t want to signal this to the outside world yet because the next leap in building standard insulation will probably involve making it difficult for ‘hollow block’ construction, used widely in Dublin, to survive,” the memo read. This was revealed in a freedom of information request, to Century Homes founder Gerry McCaughey. But the department didn’t update the rules for another four years, during which hundreds of thousands of homes were built. Then in 2007, the Construction Industry Federation warned that plans to boost minimum energy efficiency standards by 40% would add €15,000 to the price of new homes. The price rise never materialised. The Irish Homes Builders Association objected to plans the same year by Dun Laoghaire – Rathdown County Council to introduce its own tough energy efficiency rules, arguing the target was unachievable. But a similar standard is now in effect nationwide. Insulating a house properly is about more than just keeping it warm.  Over 300,000 households in Ireland experience energy poverty. Excess winter mortality — the surplus number of people that die in winter —in Ireland was found to be double that of Norway in a 2000 study by UCD researchers Peter Clinch and Jonathan Healy. Poor building standards could be one of the main causes, the authors said. Clinch and Healy also found that over half of elderly households in Ireland endured “inadequate” winter temperatures in a separate study that year. Countries with the highest winter mortality, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and UK, are also those with the poorest building standards, another study concluded the following year. The number of excess winter deaths has fallen since, and insulation standards have improved, but Ireland still