Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Ó Broin has made some of the points I wanted to make. The biggest issue here is that the system does not have a regulator. I am a firm believer that every public body now needs a regulator because there is so much unaccountability. Ms Ní Fhloinn mentioned looking to the local authorities for figures on enforcement, complaints and convictions. A builder wanting to build so many houses must, naturally enough, put a bond in place, which goes through the local authority. If, by misfortune, the housing goes into liquidation and the builder cannot afford to continue building the houses, who is accountable for the bond? At this stage 30 of 80 houses could be built and people could have bought them and be living in them. Driving into the estate, one might see unfinished lights, paths and roads. These people could have bought the houses for €400,000 each, and now they might cost €200,000. Who is accountable for that? These are people's lives we are dealing with.

We absolutely need regulation, but there is no accountability. Five years after the situation I have outlined, if one goes back to the local authority and the bond is not there, the local authority will have to see whether it can finish the footpaths, the lights and the roads because they will be unsafe. We have a duty of care to people who have bought homes in such circumstances. When they buy these homes, there should be a guarantee from a regulator that the relevant works will be done. This is a major issue. I am a firm believer in the construction industry and in ensuring local employment and so on, but one could hear that the builder has gone ten miles down the road and started another estate without finishing the first one. One is left thinking, where is the regulator, and who is implementing or allowing this? Home-owners need bonds because, for them, the guarantee of knowing they have bonds is crucial.

Overall, in the long term, we hope many more houses will be built in the next few years between local authorities and private providers, and that is great. However, we need proper regulations, everything must be sorted and everyone must be accountable in this, and this is not the case at present. I have much the same reservations the witnesses have about certain issues they have raised. They are right to highlight them, and we need answers. Bonds are definitely a massive issue in respect of which there is no accountability.