Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome representatives of the Association of Plumbing & Heating Contractors of Ireland and the CER. This is a very serious issue. I have had significant engagement with both groups. I know that the association has been pretty exasperated by the issue. More than 200 plumbers attended a meeting in a Fitzgerald hotel on a Tuesday evening in the middle of January. They are exasperated. They are busy people and have plenty to do but they spoke about what they found and the type of installation that has bee done. I have spoken to the commissioners and outlined very strongly the seriousness of this issue. While there has been engagement with both parties, there is huge frustration among the association. The statistics speak for themselves. There is a pile of unregulated jobs, for want of a better word. If something were to go wrong, there would be a massive outcry about why this was not raised or policed. There seems to be a shortage of tools to move this forward.

We must find out what needs to be done from a regulatory point of view because it is not working. A lot of unauthorised work that is not up to standard is taking place. This is a toned-down version of what I could say. I thank the Chairman for permitting both bodies to be here today in order that we can thrash out exactly what needs to be done. What further powers do we need to give the regulatory regime? Mr. Egan mentioned the new tender in 2016 but many issues have been discussed and highlighted over the past three to four years. The seriousness of the situation does not seem to have been grasped. Perhaps it is because the CER lacks the powers to police and tackle it head-on. At the meeting in the Fitzgerald hotel, I saw the frustration of very busy plumbers who had 101 things to do other than to sit there on a Tuesday evening discussing the issues. They were able to reel them off without any prompting. They were talking about real-life issues. I am not a plumber and do not know much about it but I can tell the witnesses that the information they gave at the meeting was quite startling and frightening. We need to step up to the plate to make sure something is done about this issue.