Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We had the issue of pyrite, the problem in Priory Hall and then the estate in Longford that had a gas leak. There are plenty more examples. One of the common denominators is that the people who are left holding the mortgage are the people who purchased. Clearly, there is a lack of protection. If we do not learn from this problem and do not respond by putting suitable protections in place, we will repeat it. Does the board accept that the fault lies with the fact that anyone can open up a builders' yard and start building? Does it accept there is a need for builders to have a licence, which they can lose if they breach regulations? Other than that solution I do not see how, even with all of the building and planning regulations, we will get to grips with the problem. I would like to hear the board's views on my suggestion.

Kildare is a sizeable county that has continued to develop, and its population has trebled between the early 1970s and now. My experience of such development has been that the local authority - and I do not think the scenario is different anywhere else - acts in its own interest and it looks at what it will assume responsibility for in the end. For example, the board stated that between 12% and 15% of buildings are to be inspected. Apartment blocks are not taken in charge by local authorities. They do not ensure they have the same level of oversight for apartment blocks as they do for houses because shared spaces will ultimately be taken in charge by the local authorities. If they do prioritise, in my experience, it tends to be the apartments that will be taken in charge by the local authority at some point in the future that get the kind of scrutiny that one hopes all buildings would receive. Has the board examined the inspection mix? There is less of a legacy of building apartments here and, possibly, less competence in building them. They have come to the fore in terms of being more likely to be demolished and so on.

Was a red flag flown at any point with regard to the exposure and risk associated with the fact that section 6(2)(a)(i) was not part of the regime? Many people will be exposed by virtue of the fact that opinions of competence are a lower tier and are not the same measurement as something that is statutorily based. Does that have consequences for people who have already gone through the approval process and own their houses but discover deficiencies? Is there a get-out-of-jail-free clause as a result of the lower standard being applied?

Technical guidance was provided when the pyrite problem was identified. Does the board automatically provide regulations in such cases? How do problems and lower standards reach the board's radar? There are 37 local authorities. Mr. O'Connor talked about common protocols but each local authority is a law unto itself and has a differing range of staff. Counties whose populations have grown in recent years have lower staffing levels than counties with more static population growth. The planning section was one section that needed to grow but there was a staff embargo. Will the board state that there are deficiencies in some local authorities in terms of staffing levels?