Sean Mulryan's Ballymore Homes has said it will pay £20m (€23m) to support leaseholders fix cladding across its London portfolio.

The company had previously agreed with the British Government that it would pay £15m (€17.4m).

“In February, Ballymore confirmed to the British Government that it had set aside a £15m fund to support leaseholders impacted by required cladding remediation works across its London portfolio,” a spokesperson for the company said.

“As part of its commitment to supporting residents, Ballymore can now confirm it has increased this fund to £20m,” it added.

Following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, in which 72 people died, the British Government created a £5.1bn Buildings Safety Fund to help fix dangerous cladding on residential buildings 18 metres and over in both the private and social housing sectors.

The fund is mainly targeted at supporting leaseholders in the private sector facing significant bills.

The money from Ballymore will be used to fund shortfalls between the cost of works and what will be covered by government funds.

According to a report in the Financial Times, the uncertainty over who will pay the bill for the cladding removal on homes across the UK has caused huge stress among leaseholders, who are worried they could be handed bills of tens of thousands of pounds on apartments they purchased some years ago.

While some residents have been reassured by the financial commitment from Barrymore, others told the newspaper they plan to attend protests outside the Parliament in London and at Ballymore sales sites over the coming months.

Ballymore has a number of upmarket residential developments in London including London City Island – a joint venture with Ecoworld International - and Embassy Gardens.

Mr Mulryan, who founded Ballymore in 1982, exited Nama in 2016 after paying off debts totalling €3.2bn. He currently is ranked in 185th place on the ‘Sunday Independent’ Irish Rich List with an estimated worth of €93m, up €11m on 2019.

His firm is heavily focused on urban regeneration projects, particularly in London and Dublin.

The Roscommon-born developer has helped to transform Dublin’s north quays with the Dublin Landings development that he carried out along with Singaporean investor Oxley and which was sold to property investor Iput for €115m in December 2019.