Ms Orla Hegarty:

I was in practice for a long time but I am not currently. In my experience these systems are very difficult to explain to clients, they are complex and there is a lot of uncertainty. I mean one must wait for decisions and try to get decisions at the right time. I suspect that in a lot of cases when people are advised by a professional they go down the route of just getting a builder and do not engage with the system. Such a situation is a concern.

I fully support independent oversight and it is very important that we have it. It would dovetail into the commitment that 25% of residential rental properties would be inspected by 2021. Resources have been set aside for the initiative. This system could be a vehicle for the initiative and, therefore, one could overlap the two. The final inspection could effectively be a document that is also used for the Residential Tenancies Board. One could use a resource that has been made available in a more strategic way to do two things at the same time. The proposal could prove very useful.

Mention has been made that people in the local authorities could do the work. I understand that there are fewer than 70 building control officers in the country. Obviously a flexible resource is needed to expand that pool of staff. Probably the best way to do so is by establishing a panel and framework. I do not agree that such people need to be registered professionals. At present fewer than five of the 70 staff are registered professionals because building control differs from the job of a design professional although there are overlaps. The type of people who might be taken on to do this work might be somebody who is a clerk of works, a retired site foreman, somebody who has worked in the building control industry in the UK or somebody who is an architectural technologist. A wide pool of people exists that can do this work as, effectively, building control officers.