Last December, Ursula Graham wanted to get out of her home. The Priory Hall development in which she lives had been declared a fire hazard. Sixteen council tenants were evacuated and re­housed by the local authority. Everybody else in the 180-unit development in Donaghmede, north Dublin, was left to fend for themselves. Most of the owner-occupiers, like Graham, are first-time buyers. They bought at the height of the property bubble, spending around €270,000 for a two-bed apartment.

Graham purchased her apartment under a shared-ownership scheme with the council. She thought that she too would be entitled to rehousing until such time as Priory Hall was declared safe to live in. But last Tuesday, the council informed her that just like all the other owner-occupiers, she must fend for herself. "The whole place here has deteriorated," she says. "When I bought 14 months ago, it wasn't finished, but I had assumed that it would be in a short time. Things have just got worse."

Graham and her fellow owners are the human face of the fall-out from the bursting of the property bubble. That properties have devalued is a force of the market. But Priory Hall is a victim to the manner in which business was conducted at the height of the madness. First-time buyers are learning that their homes are now in buildings that are a fire hazard; the underground carparks are closed because of flooding; a road leading through the complex is unfinished; dampness and leaking are constant problems.

The whole development is an example of how things were done by the construction industry when business was booming. But it also raises far graver questions as to how such work was certified by the authorities.

New frontiers of development

Priory Hall was one of the new frontiers of property development in north Dublin. It linked two major developments. To the south, the new town of Clongriffin, with its railway station and town centre. To the north, there was to be Belmayne, another town centre, which came to national prominence through the marketing campaign to flog apartments.

At the height of the bubble in 2006, Belmayne was marketed using scantily clad models draped across sofas, beds and, most alluringly of all, kitchen units. The message all but said: "This beautiful woman and sex for the rest of your life free with each new apartment". The former footballer Jamie Rednapp and his popstar wife performed the honours. They were very impressed with the development.

Next door in Priory Hall, they should have been on the pig's back. Part of the planning permission for the development was the construction of a road linking Clongriffin and Belmayne. The Priory Hall residents were to have the best of both town centres and their own road to ease traffic congestion linking onto the busy Malahide Road.

They were also blessed with a celebrity developer. Tom McFeely spent 53 days on hunger strike in Long Kesh at the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland. Twenty years ago, he moved south, just as the economy was turning. Within a decade, he was doing well as a builder, and then the bubble took off. Along the way, the Criminal Assets Bureau came calling and McFeely settled with the agency for €9m in unpaid taxes.

Last year, the Sunday Tribune's Suzanne Breen interviewed the millionaire builder in his Ailesbury Road mansion.

"It's a magnificent house, teeming with white marble fireplaces, ornate ceilings and chandeliers," Breen wrote. "A Celtic cross engraved with the hunger strikers' faces adorns a rosewood dresser. Long Kesh harps sit beside priceless tapestries.

"'It's a bit different to my Long Kesh cell," Breen quoted him as saying.

It's also a bit different to Priory Hall. The development, built by a McFeely company, Coalport, was started in 2003 and completed just under three years ago. Most of the units were quickly snapped up. Dublin City Council bought 16 units at cost price, as per the 2000 Planning Act which allows for social housing purchases on new developments.

Over the following three years, the dream held out by the marketeers began to disappear. Belmayne town centre has yet to be developed. There are conflicting reasons forwarded for the lack of progress, but in general it can be attributed to the perfect recessionary storm. The consequences for Priory Hall is that the road through the development is now running into a hoarding. One of the conditions attached to planning permission was that the residences should not be occupied until the road was completed. The road surface remains unfinished, and crowded with vehicles belonging to residents, who can't use the designated underground carparks. At the hoarding, the makings of a builder's dump is visible.

There has been no consequence for the failure to complete the road. The local authority's planning enforcement officer brought no proceedings against the developer.

"There was an incident in one of the apartments a few months ago," Ursula Graham says. "And when the fire brigade came it couldn't even turn on the road."

Following questions from local councillor Seán Kenny, Dublin City Council revealed that prior to 2007, it didn't insist on a bond for facilities such as the road which would be due for public ownership. A bond is a sum which the builder would have to put up as insurance to complete the road in the event of money running out. Through the bubble years, no bonds were required.

In December, the council moved out its tenants for fire-safety reasons. An enforcement order served on Coalport last September to upgrade the fire safety standards was not complied with. Work is currently ongoing to bring the buildings up to standard. The underground carparks continue to be flooded and problems with dampness are ongoing.

The question that immediately arises is how a development with all the obvious and visible problems was considered to be in compliance.

System of self-compliance

Light touch regulation was the norm in the banking industry, but it also prevailed in construction. In the early '90s, following the introduction of more stringent rules, a system of effective self-compliance was agreed with the Construction Industry Federation. This meant that the architect who oversaw the development would sign off on it, certifying that everything was constructed as per the planning permission and submitted drawings. A term that keeps popping up in the compliance documents is "substantial com­pliance". The word "substantial" is not definitive.

It's a system that has much to recommend it in normal times. There is less bureaucracy. The architect, with whom the developer has a close relationship, carries greater responsibility for projects. And progress from one job to another can be achieved with greater ease. The system of self-compliance requires spot checks from local authorities. By design, around 10% of completed jobs should be subject to checks. This again is an acceptable way of doing business in normal times.

The bubble years were far from normal. The money to be made in construction ensured that all manner of 'developers' got involved in the business. Standards were not kept at previous levels. Under pressure, local authorities found it difficult to maintain an eye on compliance.

In the case of Priory Hall, the architect was the long-established firm, Oppermann Associates. The firm signed off on Priory Hall in March 2008. Included in the compliance document is a clause with regard to the fire safety regulations. It is unclear whether anybody from the architects actually inspected the facilities that the council subsequently found to be dangerous.

Council to sue McFeely

The council says it intends to sue McFeely's Coalport, but McFeely is claiming that the development was signed off by Oppermann.

The Sunday Tribune has seen correspondence in which McFeely wrote to the architects in November 2006, referencing one of the Priory Hall buildings. "Please be advised that the above building has been completed in substantial compliance with planning permission and relevant building regulations."

However, it is difficult to reconcile that statement with with the subsequent statement of the fire officer.

Another letter from an electrical company to McFeely's Coalport states: "We confirm that we have installed fire alarms, smoke alarms, a fire detection system and emergency lighting… in substantial compliance with the building regulations."

The question arises as to whether the self-compliance system needs to be radically altered.

Councillor Kenny, who has been making representations on behalf of the residents, has called for an immediate overhaul of the policing of building regulations.

Dublin City council says it intends to take legal action against the developer over the lack of standards applied and for the cost of rehousing the evacuated residents.

Stephen Oppermann says that he has had absolutely no indication from Coalport that he is being held responsible for signing off on the development.

"I want to be clear about this," Oppermann said. "I inspected some of the units and we issued certs of compliance for those units. We did not issue compliance certs for the common areas, the carpark or the overall development."

The question thus arises about the extent of the certification process. McFeely's representative with the Priory Hall residents has been Anthony McIntyre, another former IRA prisoner, who spent 18 years in Long Kesh. He says that Coalport has yet to be contacted formally by the council's legal representatives about any legal action.

"The residents have made a number of complaints and we are involved in a concerted attempt to put things right," he said. "We have made progress with the fire safety and we are trying to address the flooding issue." He said McFeely's approach was to immediately engage with residents if there was any outstanding problems.

Kenny says an immediate review of the manner in which building regulations are enforced should be an urgent priority.

"The minister for the environment should review the whole self-certification process," he said. "It's not just Priory Hall, there are other developments up and down the country which have run into problems like this.

"The whole process needs to be examined. It's clearly not working."