Defects: Ó Broin shines a light on the fallout of Celtic Tiger Ireland’s housing follies

The Sinn Féin spokesman on housing focuses on the misery caused to ordinary home owners by light-touch regulation and rogue developers during the free-wheeling boomtime years

Eoin Ó Broin: the Sinn Féin TD’s new book is a deep dive into our housing horror, and an attempt to find some lasting solutions to it

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Defects: Living with the Legacy of the Celtic Tiger

By Eoin Ó Broin

Merrion Press, €16.95

The dodgy Irish builder is a common stereotype in British popular culture. One famous example comes from an episode of the classic sitcom Fawlty Towers, when some hotel lobby works are entrusted to a feckless conman called O’Reilly. “He’s shoddy, he doesn’t care, he’s a liar, he’s incompetent, he’s lazy,” is the completely justified verdict of one ...