Mr. Alan Isdell:

Senator Murnane O'Connor mentioned issues of health and safety in respect of apprenticeships and training. The CIRI Bill includes requisite competence for a contractor to get onto the register. Competence in our view should be knowledge, training and experience. It is not written like that in the Bill. When knowledge, training and experience are written in, that will require the apprenticeships to kick in.

We have had a huge drop-off in apprenticeships in this country and the matter really needs to be addressed.

We are part of another forum. We sit on the construction safety partnership advisory committee, which is an industry body that helps the Health and Safety Authority. Apprenticeships are one of the big issues for the committee because of the health and safety perspective. There are guys on site who deal with trades that are very skilled and people need to know what they are doing. We hope that this aspect helps to drive the need for apprenticeships.

More points were made about health and safety. The proposed Bill covers continued professional development, a matter that we have spoken about, compliance with health and safety and declaring to the board all previous convictions in terms of health and safety. The register provides health and safety safeguards for builders who register. The builders are, not only the main contractor, but all of the subcontractors right down to the guy who employs two people and has a van. That is important.