Yesterday I spoke of my concern that we may have a fireproofing scandal in our multi-dwelling building industry that could echo the leaky home scandal we've already been through.

It was sparked by what I've heard from insiders and a letter to the editor which spoke of an apartment building in Auckland that underwent leaky building remediation only for inspectors to find it had no firewalls at all. In the wake of the London apartment block tragedy this worried me greatly.

My thoughts were published and put on the Newstalk ZB Facebook page and I could have predicted the reaction. We've seen it all before.

There was the guy who said it was dribble and I had no idea about the building industry. Well that's your opinion and you're wrong because the industry is not rocket science and I've had some experience with it. It was a classic shoot the messenger tactic.

Then there was the wife of a builder who said the builders are following plans, designed by the architects, and signed off by the council, then built with approved materials. She said her husband could often see the flaws but was told to stick to the plans.

I have sympathy on this. But. If an architect said jump off a cliff, would you? If a manufacturer said I have a great cliff for you would you hurl yourself off it. If the council said this cliff is great to jump off, would you then jump off. That argument is classic responsibility shifting and blamestorming. It's everyone elses fault too so why should I take responsibility for it? But why are the guys actually building the buildings the least listened to?

Remember the story that sparked me off, so to speak, was about an apartment building that was found to have no firewalls at all! Who could build that and have a clear conscience. Imagine 20 fridges, 20 stoves, 20 TVs, hundreds of plugs and appliances and if any one of them blew and caught fire no protection for your neighbours and their families.

Then yesterday we heard of 34 elderly residents of a rest home in Orakei built in the past 20 years evacuated from their leaky building.  It’s structurally compromised and could fail fire regulations. The report specifically says the building was not constructed according to the plans so it's not the architects fault there. I was told of a multi level apartment building with firewalls between the apartments on each level but none between floors meaning fire could go straight up. It's the subject of a multi million dollar remediation.  A project manager has contacted me and said the only buildings that are fire safe have been built after 2008

I said that if this fire issue is true then I would be livid. I received a message that there is a criminal investigation happening right now into product substitution and fraudulent testing data on fireproof products and that I should be livid

If we have apartment buildings and terraced houses that don't meet fire regulations then this is a greater travesty than the leaky home buildings because of the horrific deaths that could eventuate. There's no excuse for it. Man has known you have to control fire since the beginning of time and every builder should be aware of what needs to in place no matter what some superior says.

The leaky buildings scandal strained the credibility of the industry. If we have a fireproof fiasco along similar lines then credibility will be completely shot.

Andrew Dickens is in hosting Newstalk ZB's Early Edition for Rachel Smalley.