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Dealing with the long arms of the state

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  • 10-11-2011 4:35pm
    #1
    neris
    Registered Users Posts: 20,055 ✭✭✭✭


    Apart from the obvious department of finance/revenue Im just looking to find out other business owners experiences with government departments, agencies, quangos, county councils etc etc.

    We have just moved one of our premises into another building of around 250sq/m which we signed for in June/July. The building was in a dire state and during that time we,ve had to deal with NAMA, Dublin City planners over change of use and new layout, Fire Officers, Disability officer within the planning office and a section of the HSE. NAMA were the easiest of the lot to deal with. The HSE section have said they,ll give us time to settle in and that come out and look but they always find somthing wrong.

    The disability officer and the Fire officer have been the biggest pains on a power trip. In our business we,ll never have disabled staff, or staff in wheel chairs due to the nature of the business but he insisted we had to get disabled toilets put in, wide doors for wheel chairs to fit through and a lift/stair lift. We,ve gotten away with not putting in the stair lift but the doors and toilets cost a small fortune.

    The fire officer is being a total prick over the building. We had to build interior walls and he wanted all walls to have a plasterboard that is fire resistant for 1 hour. They are double the cost of normal boards, glass panels in the walls that are 30 minute fire resistent, a variety of fire doors that are 30-60 minute fire resistent (and have to be wide enoughf or a wheel chair) and he also wanted a full on sprinkler system installed in the building. We got rough prices for sprinkler systems and minmum €30k alone. We would need to install a 2 ton water tank plus a pumping system on top of whats already been done. The nearest exits in the building are less then 25 meters away from any door.

    We just found the whole process of dealing with these individuals very expensive to say the least and totally unreal and beyond belief how much of a bubble civil/public servants live in. It also made us realise that these are the people who can force SMEs trying to expand, create business and create employment out of business


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