Mr. Hank Fogarty:

I do not recognise the Construction Industry Register Ireland, CIRI, board the Deputy describes. We do not have any role in relation to bogus employment. We are, to some extent, peripheral to the question of compliance. Our role is to register builders, to encourage a culture of compliance with the ethics and to raise the standards within construction entities. That is our primary role. I do not recognise the Deputy's point regarding a lack of independence in circumstances where the Minister makes appointments, although I take his point regarding construction. I see no conflict in having a person in construction of a particular point of view being appointed by the Minister.

It was mentioned that there are 150,000 entities. There are not even 150,000 people working in the construction industry. The CSO figures are based on a particular set of criteria, which if one drills down into them indicate that the number of people working in the industry is considerably less than 150,000. We believe there will be between 3,000 and 5,000 registered entities at the end of this process, all of whom will be members. There is no conflict with European law. We have registered people from Northern Ireland but have not yet registered anybody outside of the island of Ireland. As far as I am concerned we could not possibly be in breach of EU law. We require people wishing to register to meet minimum criteria. For example, they must adhere to the rules regarding the code of ethics and the code of conduct, train their workers on an ongoing basis, provide CPD plans and advise us on how well they have done in that regard, which will be subject to audit. We are a separate entity. We are only part of the fabric. Compliance with the building regulations is guided by the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations, BCAR. Much of the history of the bad building practices occurred before they were in place. Now, somebody can be held responsible in this area. There are a number of redress options available since 2014. We are a support in that regard. Compliance with the regulations will be guided by BCAR or whatever other system the Government wants to put in place. It is our job to register builders and to ensure, in as far as possible, that we have compliant people on our register. That is our focus.