Online survey in relation to defects in apartment and duplex buildings

A series of online surveys are being launched by the Working Group to Examine Defects in Housing. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien, TD, established the group to examine defects in housing.

The Working Group will use the survey responses to inform its report on the nature, scale and difficulties arising from discovery of such defects. It will also provide information on the costs and levies associated with remediating defects.

The Working Group would like to thank you for participating in these surveys.

The Programme for Government sets out a number of commitments in respect of the important policy area addressing building defects. It commits to an examination of defects in housing, having regard to the recommendations of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing’s report, "Safe as Houses ?". Housing for All, the Government’s national plan on housing to 2030, reiterates this commitment.

In this context, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien, TD, has established a Working Group to Examine Defects in Housing.

Its membership and terms of reference are available for download under the Documents heading below.

The Working Group receives administrative and technical support from both the Department and the Housing Agency.

To date, the Working Group has been engaging with key stakeholders and stakeholder representative groups. It is now seeking the experiences of:

• Homeowners (both current and former)
• Landlords (including private investor/owner, institutional/commercial, Approved Housing Body, Local Authority etc.)
• Directors of Owners’ Management Companies (OMCs)
• Property Management Agents.

The Working Group is asking people to provide information on their experiences of defects relating to fire safety, structural safety and water ingress in purpose-built apartment and duplex buildings constructed in Ireland between 1991 and 2013.

Information is sought from people regardless of whether such defects in those properties are currently known, unknown or where no such defects have arisen.

The survey responses will be used by the Working Group to deliver on its terms of reference, in relation to the following issues:

• the nature and scale of the issue of fire safety, structural safety and water ingress defects
• the difficulties that arise following the discovery of these defects
• the costs and levies associated with the remediation of the defects.

The survey responses will form the basis of fact-finding by the Working Group. This will inform future policy in this area and will not be used for the purpose of enforcement.

The Working Group has prepared a separate online survey for each group. It is expected that the surveys will take between 5 and 20 minutes to complete, depending on the survey. The homeowner survey is expected to take less time than the Property Management Agent survey.

The surveys will run for six weeks from Monday 31 January 2022 to 5pm on Sunday 20 March 2022 and can be accessed at the following links:

• Homeowner Survey
• Landlord survey
• Owners’ Management Company survey
• Property Management Agent survey

The surveys are hosted on EUsurvey , a survey platform that is supported by the European Commission.

EU survey is compatible with the two most recent versions of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome in addition to most mobile web browsers. Using other browsers might cause compatibility problems.

Respondents are advised that the survey responses are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2014, and the European Communities (Access to Information on the Environment) Regulations 2007- 2014, and Data Protection legislation.

Personal, confidential or commercially sensitive information should not be included in your submission and it will be presumed that all information contained in your submission is releasable under the Freedom of Information Act 2014.

Please note that the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage may publish a summary of the survey results and may also publish anonymised data from the responses received.

A privacy statement relating to any personal data that may be provided is available for download under the Documents heading above.