Member's statement: Victoria Square Residential Development

Member's statement by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 19 March 2024.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

19 March 2024

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Victoria Square Residential Development

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4278891

Read the official Assembly record

Text

First, I should say that, when I came into the Chamber today, I did not expect to hear Mr Allister talk about the subject of budgie smugglers —

— but some pleasant surprises await us in the Assembly. I want to speak about the important matter of my constituents who, around a decade ago, invested in apartments at Victoria Square in Belfast city centre, which is located at the northern edge of the South Belfast constituency. They purchased in good faith from what they believed to be reputable developers. Since then, many of them have had to vacate the property because it is not fit for human habitation and has serious structural defects. In the past number of years, in many cases, they have had to continue to pay not only mortgages on those properties but rates and service charges. That is completely inappropriate. They have been seeking legal recourse from the developers. As people will be aware, last week, that reached a very difficult moment for them when, because what is called the limitation order for Northern Ireland is for only six years, their case was struck out, despite the judge being clear about the unjustness of the situation that they were placed in. There is a clear legislative answer to the problem of the injustice faced by the Victoria Square owners, which is to bring our legislation in Northern Ireland into line with that of England and Wales. Legislation there was updated in the wake of the Grenfell disaster to ensure that people in defective properties have 30 years rather than six years in order to seek legal recourse and to make claims to see them whole. That is a completely common-sense, essential and urgent legislative change that we, on a cross-party basis, can agree here. I am pleased that the Minister for Communities moved at least to indicate publicly last week that his Department would take ownership. There was a little bit of bureaucratic pass the parcel for the owners over the past year or two, with different Departments, in the absence of Ministers, saying that they were responsible but not wanting to take responsibility for delivering the legislation. Now, I hope that the Communities Minister is able to confirm urgently that he can and is willing to bring that legislation forward. The Victoria Square owners, in particular, need it to help them. They need it to be retrospective enough that their case can be heard again. Many of those people have faced financial ruin and extreme emotional distress. Some are dealing with profound illness — in some cases, they are battling cancer. They have had to deal with this unacceptable burden over the past number of years. There is a legislative remedy that we can bring forward here. We have debated a lot of private Member's motions over the past month and a bit. Here is legislation that we can pass to improve the lives of our citizens and ensure that people are not placed in that situation in future. I therefore hope that the Communities Minister can take action, and take it rapidly, and that we can all agree to pass the legislation.

528 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:45 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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