Priory Hall residents stage vigil

Some 100 people held a candlelit vigil outside the Priory Hall apartment complex tonight to mark the date that remedial fire-safety works were due to be completed.

Some 240 residents evacuated six weeks ago due to fire safety concerns are still unable to move back into the apartment complex in Donaghmede, Dublin .

Uncertainty over the future was the biggest concern of residents who described themselves as being “in limbo”.

Three weeks ago developer Thomas McFeely and his company were ordered by the High Court to leave the complex after Dublin City Council sought their removal over lack of progress on fire safety works at the development.

Since then no remedial works have been carried out at the site.

“If work was carried out to schedule we would have been back in there this evening," resident Darren Kelly said. Mr Kelly has moved into a Nama apartment with his wife and two children where rent is currently paid by Dublin City Council.

The residents are concerned about the prospect of paying both rent and mortgages.

This depends on the outcome of a forthcoming Supreme Court appeal by Dublin City Council against a High Court order that it pays accommodation costs of residents.

“Uncertainty is the biggest concern,what is going to happen?” Mr Kelly said. “We are hoping we can stay where we are over Christmas are,” he added. “We are all taxpayers, and times were hard enough for people without this."

“We would have to scramble for a deposit on an apartment and pay our mortgages,” resident Graham Usher said. “People won’t be able to do it and will be forced to default on our mortgages,” he said.

Mr Usher lived at the apartment complex with his wife for more than four years after buying off the plans.

Residents have called on Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan to meet them. The department has so far deferred the matter to the council.

“It’s a political issue, those apartments were not build in a vacuum,” Mr Usher said.

“We are in a situation without any answers, and the people who have answers won’t meet us,” Mr Kelly said.

Labour councillor for Dublin North Central Brian McDowell today urged Mr Hogan to meet with the residents. Mr Hogan needed to “listen to the residents”so they could put their case to him, he said.

Two weeks ago Mr McFeely won a reprieve against a three-month prison sentence and a € 1 million fine for contempt of court orders and undertakings linked to the failure to complete a schedule of urgent fire safety remedial works at the 187-apartment complex. The case is pending an appeal.

On Friday Dublin City Council asked the Supreme Court for an urgent hearing of its appeal against court orders requiring it to pay accommodation and other costs of residents.

During the hearing the court heard the council was concerned at the implications of the orders – made by the High Court – regarding taxpayers, and regarding its role as a fire authority.