A REPORT commissioned by the Irish Government has ruled out the possibility of a Grenfell Tower-type disaster occurring in Ireland.
Housing minister Eoghan Murphy established a Fire Safety Task Force to assess the risk to medium-to-high-rise buildings in the wake of the London inferno on June 14, 2017.
It reviewed fire safety in 842 buildings across the country and conducted a detailed assessment of 226.
While the Task Force's final report is yet to be published, their initial findings indicate an event such as the Grenfell blaze - in which 72 people died - could not happen in Ireland.
The group's preliminary report, titled Fire Safety In Ireland, states: “The combination of contributory factors which appear to have existed in Grenfell Tower do not appear to be present in medium to high-rise buildings in Ireland.
"While work is ongoing on the fire safety assessment process, this survey and follow-up actions are seen to have reduced the probability of a disastrous fire by identifying and dealing with potential issues."
Recommendations
The report's recommendations were approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday.
The Fire Safety Task Force identified 20 social housing/medium-to-high-rise buildings in Ireland which required “substantial work”, such as the removal of external cladding - but the controversial cladding material that contributed to the spread of the Grenfell fire was not discovered anywhere.
A total of 291 buildings were found to have external cladding overall - 104 of which were residential and 187 non-residential.
The Task Force recommended owners of 226 of the buildings be compelled under the Fire Services Act to assess their fire safety in greater detail.
Buildings providing sleeping accomodation require "the most urgent attention from a life safety perspective," the report concluded, while "lower-end accomodation" was found be lacking in alarm systems and obvious escape routes.
Task Force chairman Seán Hogan said: “We should not be complacent – each fire death is one too many – and there is an ever-present potential for some fires to escalate in particular circumstances and to cause multiple fatalities.
"Unfortunately, after a 40-year record low of 20 fire deaths in 2016, the provisional figures for 2017 indicate a steep increase.”
