Ms Orla Hegarty:

The point and purpose of the building regulations advisory board is that it is independent and transparent. I was not aware until just now that there an annual review of Building Control Amendment Regulations, BCAR, has been undertaken. Those reports have not been published.

There is also a risk, to which I alluded earlier, about new methods of construction in lighter buildings. There needs to be transparency about this because new products are coming on stream and they are different to traditional construction where a small pallet of materials we re put together on a site. There are now very sophisticated constructions and we need to know there regulatory process and approval process for them because they are evolving very quickly. One recommendation is that there is a broader participation and that the reporting is published.

I wanted to make a point about the Hackitt report which was the UK response to the Grenfell fire. The headline issue on the Hackitt report is that the current system of building regulations and fire safety is not fit for purpose. The Irish system is modelled on the UK system, although one could argue that the UK system has more controls and more independence than the Irish system. If the UK system is not fit for purpose and the Irish system is modelled on it, but weaker, then we should take that very seriously. Some specific recommendations in the Hackitt report point to the fact that the BCAR system is inadequate. The Hackitt report addresses issues specifically where BCAR would be inadequate and I will name just a couple.

One is that, "It should not be possible for a client to choose their own regulator or for a regulator to be unable to apply sanctions against a dutyholder where such action is warranted". That does not happen under BCAR. There should not be any conflicts of interest, where we have conflicts of interest right through our system. It says that "The sanctions and enforcement regime should be reinforced so that penalties are an effective deterrent." We do not have a system beyond a soft approach towards enforcement. It also recommends a regulator and a mandatory reporting system, as happens in the aviation industry and in good practice quality assurance in other sectors, and a requirement to report on a no-blame basis. If someone is involved in a building management or construction process there should to be mandatory reporting on a no-blame basis. The thing that has improved standards in the aviation industry and many other sectors is having a culture of transparency about mistakes and errors and a constant feedback loop on information for improvement. We do not have a feedback loop in our system of construction and building regulation, we do not have transparency about any of that, and if anything, because of the litigation culture, we have a system of closing down information which means that mistakes are being repeated everywhere and there is no learning coming back. It is proliferating the problem rather than solving it.