Mr. Mel O'Reilly:

As a builder, I yearn for the days when there were old-type general foremen who had come up through the trenches and knew almost everything that moved on a building site. Over the years, there has been an emphasis on third level qualification for almost everything and probably an absence of the same attention to skills within the industry and allowing people to grow in the industry. That needs to be tackled at a national level. If one looks at most sites nowadays, the first thing that goes in is a plethora of cabins to store all the staff that we have on site. As Mr. McKeon said, there is a far higher level of supervision now.

Mr. McKeon has mentioned the quarries.

I doubt the local authorities, without major investment, would be able to supply the skills necessary to fulfil what is required for all of the inspections. Before we had the building regulation system, certain cities had by-laws. An inspector used to come out. From memory, there were about six or seven inspections at the time. Buildings were very simple then. Nowadays, buildings are very complex. I do not think there are very many single designers who could design an ordinary domestic building fully and to the proper extent. They would need input from mechanical or Part L contractors or whatever else. It has become very complex. The current legislation only deals with the role of the ancillary certifier, the builder and the owner but beneath that, as part of the process within the industry, all of these ancillary certifiers, the structural engineer, the mechanical consultant, the electrical consultant, the Part L compliance, fire safety and so on are all there doing their inspections as well. There is a multi-disciplinary approach. Very few buildings we start do not change during the process. Schools might be on the cards for years. If they are built, there will be changes made during the process. Designers have to be on top of that. They are more likely to see all of the issues that need to be done and put in place when that happens. The present system should be given a chance for a number of years to see if it produces the goods.