Mr. Hank Fogarty:

On behalf of Construction Industry Register Ireland's admissions and registration board, which I will refer to hereafter as the CIRI board, I thank the committee for the opportunity to make a presentation this morning on the general scheme of the building control (construction industry register Ireland) Bill 2017.

I am chairman of the CIRI board and with me is Mr. Liam Egan, who is also a member of the CIRI board. Mr. Egan is a former assistant principal architect with the Office of Public Works and I am a chartered engineer with over 40 years' construction experience with a civil engineering contractor. I retired in 2009. The then Minister with responsibility for the environment consented to my nomination as inaugural chairperson of the CIRI board while Mr. Egan was nominated to his position by the Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform with special responsibility for the OPW. Under the current voluntary CIRI scheme, the board has been in existence since March 2014. That coincided with the introduction of SI 9 of the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations 2014, or BCAR 2014 for short. Since then, my colleagues and I on the CIRI board have established operating structures and procedures which govern our obligations to develop a register for all the companies which carry out the wide range of construction activity under the BCAR regime.

A great deal of work has been done over the past three years, including analysis of the complex and diverse range of construction related activities and their categorisation into various profiles of work for CIRI registration; determination of the minimum criteria for entrance onto the register and the qualifications and experience required in order to be registered for various categories of work; development of an online registration process and its continuous review to ensure that it is not overly burdensome for applicants while at the same time providing relevant and meaningful information to the board upon which to base its decisions; the establishment of an assessment subcommittee of the board to assess each of the applications for membership of the CIRI register; and the determination of the continuing professional development requirements that should pertain for all workers of registered construction entities.

Committee members will appreciate that as the regulatory environment for construction is constantly changing, there is a requirement for ongoing CPD. That is a central and important aspect of our obligations. There is an ongoing review of the code of ethics specifying the required ethical behaviour of members of the register and there is a determination of the practical process by which the board's assessment of individual applications for registration is undertaken and the basis under which formal decision making is made by the entire board. We are also engaged in ongoing work to determine an appropriate complaints and appeals procedure.

In this regard, the Minister has recently consented to the appointment of Mr. Rory O'Donnell, who is a very well-known and respected solicitor, as independent chairman of the CIRI appeals committee.

Our entire board has been diligent and proactive in the carrying out of its functions since its establishment so that the objective of developing CIRI as a credible registration scheme would be achieved. At the same time, the board has reviewed the general scheme as published by the Government and is intent on ensuring the amendments to the current processes under the voluntary scheme can now be put in place to reflect the proposed statutory scheme that will ultimately be passed by the Houses of the Oireachtas.

I pay tribute to the CIRI board for the enthusiasm with which it has approached the development of the register and its commitment to the creation of a culture of compliance and continuing education within our industry. Knowledge, skill, competence and practical construction-related experience are the hallmarks of every successful construction company and are the foundation on which CIRI will be based.

We welcome the publication of the general scheme and look forward to the proposed legislation coming into effect.