Mr. Maurice Buckley:

The NSAI does not certify construction contracts but the world of construction like every other sector has hundreds if not thousands of standards associated with it for every conceivable product one can imagine which goes into the building of a house or a large public building. As Senator Quinn mentioned, yesterday a new regime was introduced under the construction products regulation which has come into effect fully throughout Europe. It will create many extra requirements for the NSAI to transpose European standards fully as national standards and reference points, and provide certification schemes for Irish companies so they can CE mark their construction products. This is very new as up to now construction products did not have to be CE marked to be placed on the European market. There is quite a lot happening in this arena.

With regard to five year objectives and where we would like to be, I will pick up on a previous point made on the link with research and development. During the 1980s and 1990s Ireland was a manufacturing-based economy and we would like to think the NSAI played a strong role during this period, promoting quality through ISO 9000 and various systems. As we come through this difficult time we will be a much more knowledge-based economy investing in people and developing products and services. This requires much more intensive interaction with standardisation.

This country needs to go from standards takers to standards makers, and this is a role in which the NSAI can support business and we actively promote it. As a small country Ireland has exactly the same access to the international standardisation committees as the US, Germany and China, which is a huge benefit not only to indigenous Irish companies which are our primary target but it is also of great assistance to the IDA in attracting international investment, because the sites in Ireland which at one point in the distant past were manufacturing only can now play a big role in research and development. They can also be a conduit to international standardisation through the work of the NSAI. Over the next five years we would like this to become part and parcel of the package Ireland offers through the IDA and Enterprise Ireland to foreign and domestic businesses. We are not looking for money or support; we will fight our corner like anybody else, but preaching this message and establishing this culture would be the great hope and objective of the NSAI, and this is where we need the support of the good people in this room.