To Hall And Back

Priory Hall. Engrave the words on your desk. Write them in black marker on your school bag. Put them on your Facebook page. Tweet them and tweet them again. Priory Hall. We must never forget Priory Hall.

Of all the horror stories to have emerged from the economic crash, the story of Priory Hall must rank among the very worst: it is a graphic expression of just how much the system chews up Irish citizens and spits them out. Until tragedy intervenes. 
It is among the worst, not because of the extent to which ordinary decent people were hoodwinked. Not because the jerry-building of the apartments which they bought in good faith was like a metaphor of the times. Not because the subsequent shocking treatment of these people by the banks led to the suicide of one man, Fiachra Daly, who just couldn’t take it any more.
No. What makes the story of Priory Hall so appalling, so dispiriting, so gut-wrenching is that at every level the State and its institutions so utterly failed the people who were, and are, the victims of the Priory Hall scandal – and it resulted in one man taking his own life and his wife and two children being forced to live the rest of their days in the long shadow of his loss.
The facts are worth remembering. In the region of 250 people lived in apartments in Priory Hall, most of them bought ‘off the plans’. For some it was a dream come true: their first home, overlooking Dublin Bay, it was the place where they would set up together and start a family. They paid €295,000 for the privilege. It was a lot of money but if everything was done properly, it would make sense in the long run.
But of course the plans were a tissue of falsehoods, to which the builder Tom McFeely had no intention of adhering. Problems with the construction of the apartments began to emerge as soon as people moved in. There was dampness evident on the walls. Water getting in. Structural defects of different kinds. Wrestling with that was bad but might have been bearable. Then, three years after people had taken ownership, came the ultimate hammer blow. In October 2011, residents received an evacuation order from Dublin City Council. The entire complex had been built without the firewalls necessary to prevent a blaze in one apartment spreading to the next. It was one enormous death trap.
The evacuating residents were provided with temporary accommodation by Dublin City Council. It was the very least that might have been offered. But it was that and no more. It would be impossible to overstate the extent of the disruption, stress and trauma experienced by those who were forced out, as they were moved from one place to another, their lives consumed with fear, regret and paranoia, as they realised the value of the property they’d bought had collapsed to nought overnight.
You might have thought that the State or the City Council would step in. Or that the banks would take the initiative by collectively looking for a resolution that would free the victims of the liability of having to pay for the debacle. Or that someone would get the appropriate insurance company – or the insurance companies’ insurance company – to pick up the tab.
Instead, nothing.
In an interview in the Sunday Independent, one of the Priory Hall residents, Graham Usher, spoke of the nightmare two years through which people living in the Donaghmede apartment complex had been put, a protracted period of sustained torture, during which they have not only had to live with the threat that their temporary accommodation could be removed from them at any time, but also to cope with the appalling reality that the banks continued to insist that every penny of the debt on the apartments would have to be paid.
The financial adviser Michael Dowling successfully negotiated a moratorium on payments for most of the mortgage holders in Priory Hall. But that only meant that former residents would not be required to make immediate payments. The full debt stood. And it was accruing additional interest. For many who had been landed in this worst of all possible worlds, the amount owed climbed steadily above the original purchase price. This was not negative equity. This was the worst money pit imaginable.
Stephanie Meehan, partner of Fiachra Daly, who committed suicide, explained just how fraught the situation was for residents. The moratorium had to be renewed every three months, separately, by everyone individually. If that wasn’t done, the demands started to flood in afresh from the banks.
Stephanie recalled the build-up to Fiachra’s suicide. The monthly statement from KBC bank arrived the Thursday before he took his own life. It informed the couple that there was an outstanding balance of €312,103 due, including arrears of €19,281. Because they had not successfully renewed the moratorium on repayments, the accompanying letter demanded a monthly mortgage payment of €1,500.
Stephanie herself was in despair and gave the letter to Fiachra telling him that she couldn’t handle it. He refused to read it, saying that he wasn’t able for it either. “He was concerned about us having to pack up and move for a fifth time,” Stephanie told Maeve Sheehan. The prospect would have been enough to floor the most resilient of characters. And so, Fiachra made the ultimate call: by taking his own life, he would free his wife and child from any obligation to pay the outstanding mortgage. The Life Insurance he had taken out would kick into effect.
Still KBC persisted. They sent Stephanie a further demand to pay a balance of €17,000 above and beyond what had been covered by the Life Insurance policy. After the story went public, KBC retracted and issued a statement saying that they would not be pursuing Stephanie for this money. But, of course, there must be more to any proposed final settlement than this: if the banks accept some kind of write down on the loans generally, then Stephanie and her children should get the benefit of that too. 
And not only that: she has lost a partner, her children their father, as a result of what went on in Priory Hall. Who is going to compensate her and her small family for that tragic, irreparable loss?
So let us get this straight. The people who bought the apartments in Priory Hall did nothing wrong. Others, however, did.
– They were failed by the Department of the Environment, under whose control, the regulation of building and development takes place.
– They were failed by the local authority Dublin City Council, which issued planning permission and failed to ensure that the conditions set for construction were met.
– They were failed by the professionals who signed off on the work, when it was grossly deficient.
– They were failed by the banks, who were equally involved in the purchase of the properties without being sure that they were safe to live in, and who then continued to demand their money.
– They were failed by the legal profession in general, and most specifically by the lawyers for the vendors, who delivered the title deeds to utterly deficient goods to the market.
– And they were failed by the politicians who stood idly by and did nothing while these ordinary, decent citizens were stripped of their dignity, their homes, their money and, to a considerable extent, their future. 
There is no basis on which the people who bought these properties should be saddled with having to pay for them. That is obvious. Nor should they have to endure the grief and the uncertainty that goes with being stuck with a monster debt on a property that is next to worthless.
As soon as the story emerged, those with responsibility in the Department of the Environment, Dublin City Council, the relevant insurance companies, the banks and the legal profession should have been dragged – kicking and screaming if necessary – around a table in order to agree on how they would share the downside, in recognition of the inescapable fact that they had all fucked up.
The Minister for the Environment, Phil Hogan, has now estimated that the total cost of putting things right in Priory Hall so that people could go back to the homes they had to abandon, would be €12 million. It is a piddling amount of money in the grand scheme of things. 
To have acted quickly, reassured the former residents that help was on the way and set about getting the work done would have solved all of the problems – and would likely have saved Fiachra Daly’s life.
But here is the greatest scandal. Ordinary Irish citizens are left to fight these battles on their own because there is such a defensive, mean-spirited, negative mindset at the top end of Ireland’s public service; and because this is underpinned by a lack of political leadership. It is wrong, entirely wrong in every single respect. 
It is too late now, for KBC to say that they will not be pursuing Stephanie Meehan for the extra 17k. And for Phil Hogan to promise action. Fiachra Daly is dead. 
The grim reality of what happened in Priory Hall will not go away. The memory is forever. Engrave the words on your desk. Write them in black marker on your school bag. Put them on your Facebook page. Tweet them and tweet them again. Priory Hall. 
We must never forget Priory Hall.