Mr. Sean Giffney:

The APHCI has made numerous practical proposals to the CER and RGII but in all cases has been totally ignored. As an organisation which represents 500 members who would employ up to 1,000 installers, we are the people who are working on the ground and going in and out of people's homes. We see what is happening day to day and the condition of installations that are installed not only in family homes but in apartment blocks and apartments. Our members constantly deliver numerous shocking photographs and stories, which I have on file, of various disastrous boiler installations they have come upon. They are astonished that there has not been a major serious accident.

The market is flooded with illegal operators at a major loss of revenue to the State. The industry is not policed. We have serious concerns about the danger, carelessness and increasing and widespread malpractice that poses a high risk of serious accidents and death. Thousands of lives are at risk. Why has nothing been done about it? We do not exaggerate when we say that 18,000 uncertified, unregulated gas boilers are installed every year in family homes and apartments and nobody knows the condition of them. It is all very well for the CER to tell us these practices exist on paper, but nobody - not the CER, RGII nor the Minister - is responsible for gas safety and policing the illegal installers.

We can go to any of the merchants on any morning of the week and see anything up to 20 people buying gas boilers and paying cash. These people are unregistered. It is a crisis and our members are frustrated. They have taken time out of their work to protest outside this morning to try to highlight these issues to the CER, but the CER just will not listen to us.