Imagine you’re sitting in your office when a fire officer walks in with a clipboard. They check a fire door in the corridor. The closer’s broken. The seals are missing. They hand you an enforcement notice – and suddenly it’s your problem.
But is it actually your problem? Who’s responsible for the fire doors in your building?
If you own or manage a property in Ireland, you need to know the answer. Because fire doors are one of the most critical parts of your building’s passive fire protection. They buy people time to escape. They hold back smoke and flame. And if nobody’s looking after them, they might as well not be there.
Here’s what we’ll cover: what the law actually says, who carries the legal responsibility, and – honestly – the stuff most people get wrong.
What Fire Doors Actually Do (and Why You Should Care)
A fire door isn’t just a heavy door. It’s a tested, certified assembly designed to hold back fire and smoke for a set period – usually 30 or 60 minutes.
That sounds simple, but those minutes matter. In a real fire, 30 minutes can be the difference between everyone getting out safely and a tragedy.
Fire doors work as part of your building’s compartmentalisation. They divide the building into sections so fire can’t rip through the whole structure at once. Every door, frame, seal, and closer plays a role.
Remove one element – say, a broken closer or a missing intumescent strip – and the whole system fails. It’s like a chain. One weak link and you’ve lost the lot.
What Irish Law Says About Fire Doors
In Ireland, fire safety in buildings falls under two main pieces of legislation.
The Building Regulations (Part B: Fire Safety) set the standards your building must meet at construction or renovation. Technical Guidance Document B (TGD B) has the detail. It covers escape routes, compartmentalisation, and – you guessed it – fire doors.
The Fire Services Acts 1981 and 2003 place ongoing duties on building owners and occupiers. Section 18(2) of the 2003 Act is the big one. It says the “person having control” of a building must take “all reasonable measures” to guard against fire and protect people on the premises.
That phrase – “person having control” – is where things get interesting.
So, Who Is the “Person Having Control”?
The law doesn’t always spell this out in black and white. But here’s how it works in practice.
Building Owners
If you own the building, you carry the primary responsibility. Full stop. You must ensure fire doors were installed correctly. You must keep them in working order. And you must replace them when they’re past it.
For multi-unit residential buildings, this usually falls to the Owners’ Management Company (OMC). The OMC is legally responsible for common areas – corridors, stairwells, lobbies. These are exactly the areas where fire doors matter most.
Landlords
If you’re a landlord, you’ve got duties under both fire safety law and the Residential Tenancies Act. You must provide a property that meets minimum fire safety standards, because that includes working fire doors where required.
You can’t pass this off to your tenant. Even if your lease says the tenant handles “minor repairs,” fire door maintenance is your problem. We see this cause confusion all the time.
Tenants and Occupiers
Tenants aren’t off the hook entirely. If you’re a commercial tenant, you’ve got a duty not to interfere with fire safety measures. That means you can’t wedge fire doors open. You can’t remove door closers because they’re annoying. And you can’t hang things from fire door frames.
If you spot damage to a fire door, report it to your landlord or building manager straight away.
Facilities Managers
Many building owners hand day-to-day fire safety management to a facilities manager. That’s fine – but the legal responsibility still sits with the owner. The facilities manager acts on your behalf. If they drop the ball, it’s still your name on the enforcement notice.
The Real-World Cost of Getting This Wrong
This isn’t about ticking boxes. The consequences are serious, and they’re financial, legal, and personal.
| Consequence | What It Means for You |
|---|---|
| Criminal prosecution | Under the Fire Services Acts, fines can reach €130,000 – plus imprisonment |
| Insurance invalidation | Insurers can refuse claims if fire doors weren’t maintained. Your premium means nothing if the policy is void |
| Civil liability | If someone’s injured or killed, you could face personal injury or wrongful death claims |
| Enforcement notices | Your local fire authority can order you to fix issues within a set timeframe |
| Closure orders | In extreme cases, a fire officer can shut your building down immediately |
We’ve watched this play out in Ireland. After the Grenfell tragedy in London in 2017, Irish authorities ramped up inspections. Many Celtic Tiger-era apartment blocks turned up serious defects – missing fire doors, unsealed penetrations, failed compartmentalisation.
The Government’s Interim Remediation Scheme was introduced to tackle the worst cases. But for building owners, the lesson is clear: don’t wait for an inspection to find out your fire doors aren’t up to standard.
How Often Should Fire Doors Be Inspected?
There’s no single magic number, but here’s what best practice looks like.
Every 6 months: A full inspection of all fire doors by a competent person. This means someone who actually knows what they’re looking at – not just a caretaker with a clipboard.
Quarterly: A visual check in high-traffic areas. Offices, hotels, schools, and apartment common areas take a beating. Door closers fail. Seals get damaged. Hinges loosen.
After any incident or alteration: If there’s been a fire, flood, or renovation work near a fire door, inspect it straight away. Because even minor building works can knock a fire door out of alignment.
What Should a Fire Door Inspection Cover?
A proper inspection checks at least 10 key points:
- The door leaf is free from damage and hasn’t been altered
- The frame is secure and undamaged
- Gaps between door and frame are 3mm or less (with appropriate seals)
- Intumescent strips and smoke seals are intact
- The door closer works and shuts the door fully
- Hinges are secure (minimum 3 hinges on an FD30 door)
- The door latches properly when closed
- Any glazing is fire-rated and undamaged
- Signage is present and legible
- No unauthorised modifications have been made
If your fire doors fail on any of these points, you need to act now – not next month.
Common Fire Door Problems We See in Irish Buildings
After 20 years working in fire prevention across Ireland, our team has seen the same issues over and over. Honestly, some of them would surprise you.
Doors propped open. This is the number one problem we find. People prop fire doors open for convenience – especially in offices and hotels. It completely defeats the purpose. If you need doors to stay open, fit them with hold-open devices linked to the fire alarm. They’ll release automatically if the alarm sounds.
Missing or damaged intumescent strips. These strips expand in heat to seal the gap between door and frame. Without them, smoke passes through freely. We’ve inspected buildings in Dublin where strips had been painted over or removed entirely – sometimes by decorators who didn’t realise what they were.
Broken door closers. A fire door that doesn’t close on its own isn’t a fire door. It’s just a door. We replaced over 120 door closers in a single Dublin 8 apartment block during a remediation project in 2024, because not one of them was functioning properly.
Non-certified replacements. We’ve seen building managers swap fire doors for standard doors to save money. A standard internal door gives you roughly 10 minutes of fire resistance. A certified FD60 gives you 60 minutes. That’s a 50-minute gap that could cost lives. The saving isn’t worth it.
Gaps that are too wide. The maximum gap between a fire door and its frame should be 3mm. Anything more and smoke gets through. We’ve measured gaps of 8-10mm in older buildings – usually because the frames have shifted over the years.
What You Should Do Right Now
If you’re a building owner or manager reading this, here’s a straightforward action plan.
Step 1: Know your fire doors. Do you know how many fire doors are in your building? Do you know their fire rating? If the answer is no to either, you need a fire door survey.
Step 2: Get a professional inspection. Don’t guess. A qualified fire safety consultant can inspect every fire door and tell you exactly what needs repair, replacement, or upgrade.
Step 3: Fix the urgent issues first. Doors that don’t close properly, missing seals, and propped-open doors are your top priorities – because these are the things that fail first in a real fire.
Step 4: Set up a maintenance schedule. Fire doors need regular attention. Put a 6-monthly inspection cycle in place and stick to it.
Step 5: Keep records. Document every inspection, repair, and replacement. If a fire officer calls, you need a paper trail. Good records also help with insurance claims and compliance audits.
Who Can Help With Fire Door Compliance in Ireland?
You need a company that understands Irish building regulations, holds proper certification, and has real experience with fire doors in Irish buildings.
At Firestoppers, we’ve spent over 20 years helping building owners across Ireland get their fire doors right. We’re FIRAS and IFC certified. We supply and install fire-rated doors – FD30 and FD60. We carry out fire door surveys, inspections, and full remediation work.
In 2024, we partnered with an OMC in Dublin 8 to bring an entire apartment complex up to full Part B compliance. That project involved installing 120 FD60 fire doors, sealing over 500 penetrations, and upgrading smoke detection throughout the building. It took months, but the building is now fully compliant.
Whether you’ve got a single office in Limerick or a 200-unit apartment block in Dublin, we can help.
Wrapping Up
Fire doors save lives – but only if they’re installed correctly, maintained regularly, and managed by the right people. If you’re the building owner, the buck stops with you.
Don’t wait for a fire officer to knock on your door. Get your fire doors checked, fix what’s broken, and put a proper maintenance plan in place.
If you’d like a second opinion on where your building stands, give us a call at (+353) 01 816 5587 or drop a line to info@firestoppers.ie. No pressure – we’ll just tell you what we find.
