Mr. John Wickham:

I will begin with a broad overview of Part M so that what the regulation hopes to achieve can be more widely understood. The purpose of Part M is achieving adequate provision for people to access and use buildings and their environs. The regulation itself underpins the philosophy of universal design. It means that new buildings other than dwellings are accessible and usable, extensions to existing buildings, where practicable, are accessible and useful, material alterations to the existing building stock make provision for accessibility and usability of buildings, and adequate provision is made for access and use where there is change of use of buildings from one type to another.

The Deputy is quite correct with regard to the regulations for new dwellings. New dwellings are designed to be visited. In essence, this means the approach to a dwelling is accessible, a level threshold is provided at the main entrance, doors are of sufficient width to cater for circulation throughout the building, circulation routes are adequate, there is a WC at entry level, and switches and sockets are at an accessible height.

When it comes to dwellings, there are houses and apartments. Apartments by their nature are more accessible. The provisions of Part M require lifts so the level of access to each apartment is achieved. The trend is that 40% of dwelling units coming on stream through planning permission are apartments. Industry trends are towards open plan design, which is a new feature to which we are responding. In fact, it favours universal design as it removes barriers to access and circulation throughout the dwelling.

In terms of the overall initiative to change Part M, we are very conscious of the costs associated with universal design. Ms Timmons referred to the national disability inclusion strategy action of 1997 that set out a task for the National Disability Authority to advise stakeholders on ways to achieve universal design solutions in all private and social housing and how they can be accessed and used by all, irrespective of age, size or disability.

We are very keen to see the outcomes of the cost-benefit analysis and any consultations on it. From our experience, the costs associated with providing free universal design can range from the low end of €15,000 to multiples of it. We just need to recognise this. We recognise that apartments by their nature are more universal design friendly than housing. We would like to see the costs first and they will be considered in full.