Mr. Hubert Fitzpatrick:

There are a number of players in the market. By and large, any builder who goes out to build a house to sell it on the open market will automatically get this insurance cover because a potential home buyer who goes out to secure a mortgage will only secure a mortgage on the grounds that this insurance is in place so while it is not mandatory, it is de factoa requirement for anybody who wants to build and sell a house on the open market. That is fully supported by the industry. We have no problem with that whatsoever.

In respect of poor workmanship, I believe the building control environment today is very different. The culture of compliance is totally different from what pertained prior to the passing of SI 9 of 2014. There is increased consciousness that an owner must appoint a competent builder and the builder must then appoint a competent team. We believe the CIRI registration process will certainly support that process in ensuring that only competent people are appointed for each stage of the construction process. A much more stringent level of oversight pertains to the construction of buildings. We have the assigned certifier and key inspections that are undertaken on buildings during the course of building work. We, as an industry, certainly do not want what happened in the past in terms of the experience of a number of home owners where defective workmanship was found and caused great grief to happen again. We, as an industry, want to ensure that we have a properly regulated industry where regulation is fully transparent and credible and works at the end of the day in the interests of the consumer. There are a number of issues there that would be more appropriately dealt with via the CIRI team.