Ms Orla Hegarty:

I will take one of the first questions asked about a similar model. The CIRI Bill has been drafted on the basis of the Building Control Act 2007. I do not feel this is appropriate. Professionals are there to give advice, so if they give bad advice, the purpose is to sanction them in order that they do not give bad advice in the future. Builders build a product, a building, so a complaints process that looks at their professional performance, misconduct and consumer service is not really appropriate because the complainant wants the house, the product, fixed. A more appropriate model might be what happens in the Register of Electrical Contractors of Ireland, RECI, which is how the electricians are regulated. If one makes a complaint to RECI, one receives receipt of one's complaint within a day and RECI sends an independent inspector out to look at the electrical installation within seven days. This is what home-owners want. They do not necessarily want their complaints to be put to a complaints committee for an investigation that will drag on for several months, at the end of which perhaps someone will be sanctioned. The complainant still has the problem with the building that will not be fixed. What complainants want is perhaps similar to what happens under RECI. I do not think the model for professional bodies is appropriate to use for builders.

Regarding how these bodies operate, in preparation for this meeting, I sought records from the bodies for architects, surveyors and engineers and from CIRI. Engineers Ireland does not have a statutory register and does not publish any data regarding sanction of its members, so these were not available. I got some information from the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, RIAI, and the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, SCSI, but it is clear that a very small number of actions get to the point of enforcement or any public sanction. It is also clear that most of the complaints are mediated within the organisation before going to the independent board for consideration, which demonstrates somewhat of a conflict of interest. A very small percentage of the reports get to the independent board, and most of them are negotiated or mediated, so it is good practice to have a sliding scale as to how one deals with complaints. However, the sliding scale should be within the independent body, not within the organisation, because there are again conflicts there regarding which ones are pursued and which ones are not and perhaps how people are advised at an early stage on some of that. As a model, using a professional is not the same. I sought advice from CIRI on the number of people admitted and sanctioned over the past three or four years since it was established but that has not been provided to me.