Mr. Aidan O'Connor:

There are national standards for materials and what materials can be used, in the abstract, so to speak. These are performance standards. The manufacturers must demonstrate that their materials are compliant. The Chairman refers to extracting material from a quarry. This is covered by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation because the quarry is a business, effectively. However, quarries are required to test materials because they are a business selling a product. It comes down to a point of sale issue. They are selling a material which, although it is a component part, is part of the building structure. It is not like a window or other manufactured item but the quarried stone is being used. The specification would be No. 804 which the Department set as a standard and many local authorities followed that standard. The NRA also uses that standard. It was regarded as a premium labelling for stone and it is to do with the size of the stone. The number 804 became the shorthand for high-quality stone - in other words, such stone did not contain an imperfection or any form of defect. Builders relied on that standard. Sometimes builders used other standards of stone such as three-inch down. No. 804 was often the standard specified when writing specifications and this would be expected to be a clean stone that can be compacted and laid to compacted level. A concrete floor could then be laid on top of that and this floor often floats on top of it. The problem with the pyrite was that the pyrite contaminant was sold with stone like that.