Thin walls cause stress, claims GP

A GP is blaming the construction boom in the Irish Republic for a flood of patients to his surgery complaining of stress, irritability and insomnia as a result of noise.

Dr Maurice Gueret, who practises in Dublin and is a member of the local regional health board, claimed builders are skimping on standards because of the boom, with some new houses and apartments so poorly insulated against everyday noise that occupants find it difficult to cope.

"Even ordinary conversations, snoring and other nocturnal activities are easily heard through the dividing walls of some of today's semi-detached houses, and become major irritants," he said.

The doctor spoke out as Irish courts reported a sharp increase in cases of neighbours suing each other in disputes over noise. "Poorly built houses can be a source of great tension among neighbours, particularly on new estates. The real villains are not the people next door but the builders who skimp on time and materials and fail to meet proper insulation standards."

However, a spokesman for the Irish Construction Industry Federation dismissed the doctor's comments.

"Irish homes are built to the highest standard," said Kevin Gilna, "and legislation is in place to ensure that is so, and continues to be so. We are being blamed for something that has nothing to do with us.

"Neighbours are not getting on these days. Maybe it's the stress of modern day living. There's nothing we can do about it. It's not our department."

One of the Irish Republic's best known architects, Duncan Stewart, disagrees. He shares the doctor's concern about inadequate insulation and called the federation's official response "appalling, as it seems to suggest that builders have to be defended, whatever the standard of their work".

Stewart claimed that "as house prices have doubled, construction standards have fallen", and expressed the hope that the debate sparked by Dr Gueret's criticism would spur the Department of the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs to take action.

Building regulations need to be revised and toughened, he said, with an independent inspectorate policing standards, as happened in other countries. In the meantime, house or apartment owners forced to live with a noise problem because of poor insulation should take the builder to court.

"A test case, with damages awarded, would have an immediate effect," he suggested.