Mr. John O'Mahoney:

I will make a few comments before handing over to Mr. Bluett who is more versed in relation to fire.

In relation to mould, the way we seal buildings these days means that they are completely airtight. The problem with new buildings is that one can still put vents in a wall which means that the air does not circulate around the building. As practitioners we are starting to insist that there is a handling system within apartments and houses that actually extracts the air. There are methods of doing this and it is important that, perhaps through the regulations, they become a requirement. Otherwise one is dealing with stale, bad air which in turn leads to all problems that we are dealing with.

Just observing the Millfield Manor fire as an architect, it seemed clear that the fire prevention methodologies on the party walls were not in place so the fire spread at a very fast rate. That leads to the problem of how we supervise and how fire safety regulations are applied on site. As practitioners, for us as architects, making sure that the fire elements are in place would be our top priority for inspection. Within the building construction industry now, particularly in more complicated buildings, there is a management construction system which means that effectively the contractor is managing a whole series of subcontractors. We are now starting to find, because of the inspection plans that BCAR has put in place, that when it comes to the builder inspecting the works, subcontractors works are all done independently and the inspections by the contractors fall between two stools. We, as professionals, are constantly coming back and inspecting subcontractors work and condemning it which is really not our job. Therefore, things can fall between the cracks. The institute is starting to consider the idea of a supervision plan. While we have an inspection plan at the moment which identifies responsibilities for professions and so on in inspection, we think the introduction of a supervision plan which puts a much stronger onus on the contractor signing off on his or her inspection responsibilities may help to reduce this potential for falling between the cracks. Mr. Bluett may care to comment more specifically on the issue of fire.