Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations and for taking the time to answer our questions. All of the committee members want to see a mandatory register. The issue is whether the legislation provides the most robust system we can get. Much of this has to do with the quality of the enforcement element of it. I have a couple of questions for all of the witnesses. We have had the voluntary register since 2014. What has been the witnesses' experience of this? Have they noticed the voluntary register making any change or impact? Have they noticed, or are they aware of, any enforcement actions taken for non-compliance or poor standards against contractors on this voluntary register since it was established?

In terms of the effectiveness of the enforcement, somebody on the panel mentioned that the complexity of building, particularly new building technologies, creates a series of challenges, but there is also the size of the sector. The size of this register will be substantially bigger than any of the registers the witnesses' organisations operate. Do these two factors, the complexity of what is done and the size of the sector create additional challenges which need to be considered? For example, if I discover there is no fire stopping in the home I bought some years ago, against whom do I make a complaint? Is it the untrained subcontractor who installed the fire stopping, the foreman of the building site, the builder, the developer or somebody else? How will the register work in this sense? If I employ an architect, it is pretty straightforward as I make a complaint about the work or otherwise of that individual. How do the witnesses see this register working in this particular way?

There is also an issue about independence and we have two options in terms of the legislation. One is to follow self-regulation, which is the model that works in the witnesses' own sectors, and arguably works very well. The other, of course, is an independent model, whether we look at the Environmental Protection Agency or the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. Given the size of the sector, the complexity of what is done and the damage reputation that sector has because of the activities of a small but significant number of rogue contractors, is there an argument to say that public confidence would be better served by having a fully independent register and enforcement activity rather than locating it, for example, within the Construction Industry Federation? I am interested to hear the views of the witnesses on this.

In terms of board membership, do witnesses think the legislation is strong enough to ensure not only industry representation but also that consumers and consumer protection have a voice? Obviously there are ministerial appointees. There is clearly a need, given the level of defect discovery in developments, for some type of consumer voice because this is the bit that is missing in much of the public debate and legislation, as the witnesses have outlined.

I would like the views of the witnesses on sanctions. While I absolutely agree with the principle that if somebody does something wrong and is sanctioned, there should be a remedy for them to get back into the system, at what point does the level of negligence or non-compliance become so egregious that not only is somebody taken off the register but he or she is barred from engaging in the profession at all? We see this with taxi drivers and other industries. Do the witnesses' organisations have a sense in which there should be a scale of sanctions and what kinds of sanctions should be applied, given the impact that non-compliance in the sector has, not just on people's quality of life but on their family homes, family futures and their financial well-being?