Mr. Hubert Fitzpatrick:

In many instances, people were building houses from planning drawings. Building regulation has become extremely complex in the past few years, particularly in respect of compliance with Part L of the building regulations. Where some builders were being asked to build houses from planning drawings, that was not adequate and we needed proper design drawings submitted for building purposes. I know that many people building one-off houses incorporated the design fee into the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations costs. It has to be broken down into the work required for the detailed design of the house and the certification costs for going in and overseeing the development. When we break it down on that basis, the costs are closer to €2,500 or €3,000 per house. The one-off housing sector is certainly seeing it in a different light. People in that sector view the design costs as part of this compliance issue. I will be happy to go through this with the Deputy.