Ms Sarah Neary:

As the Chairman said, it is a major red flag from a building controls perspective if the assigned certifier changes. They are going to be out there wondering what is going on. There is also the tension that always exists in construction projects.

When one person leaves a site, the next person coming on site will be very wary of what he or she is taking on. All of the normal procedures take place; that has not changed. Statutory Instrument No. 9 empowered the assigned certifiers, got them on site and gave them the tools required to carry out their work professionally. On completion, the builder needs the certificate of compliance to move on with the project and pursue his or her commercial interests.

A question was asked on historical buildings. The re-utilisation of vacant historical properties is a complex issue and key priority under Rebuilding Ireland. It is associated with a significant degree of uncertainty. We have been made aware that individuals and developers are finding it difficult to engage with the system because of the singular regulatory requirements, whether in respect of fire safety, building control, planning, accessibility or conservation. At times, it appears as if these areas are in conflict. We are, therefore, anxious to address the matter. The Living City initiative is a financial mechanism aimed at stimulating activity in this area. Some local authorities are establishing multidisciplinary groups to facilitate developers in liaising with all of the key regulatory requirement personnel at the same time to ascertain what will constraints will apply to their developments. We are shadowing this activity in the hope of finding common areas on which we can expand guidance to streamline or improve the system in this regard. We hope this work, in which we are very interested and to which we are very committed, will be fruitful.

On the building control amendment regulations, BCAR, as part of the review in 2015 we attempted to put a cost on the assigned certifier role and the overall cost of the regulations for a one-off dwelling. These costs amounted to approximately €3,800 for the assigned certifier role and €6,000 for a single dwelling. Industry quotations do not appear to exceed those figures and may be even be a little lower. The Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland report found the average cost for an average three-bedroom dwelling was approximately €5,500, which was approximately 2% of the overall cost. The 2% figure is mirrored in social housing projects. While this cost may be identified as the cost of compliance, the cost of non-compliance is far in excess of this figure. For example, by the end of this year, taxpayers will have spent approximately €60 million on pyrite remediation works on approximately 1,000 houses.

Deputy Ó Broin referred to BCAR costs which are far in excess of our estimate. These may be costs associated with building regulations and the actual performance requirements, rather than BCAR compliance issues.