Ms Deirdre Ní Fhloinn:

I thank the Senator for his very good questions. The reference I made to sanctions under the Act was not to suggest that the Act is perfect as it is. I have a concern about the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations 2014, which introduced a mandatory system of inspection and certification by developers and their appointees. For most developments of any significant size, developers must appoint competent people who are registered with the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, the Society of Chartered Surveyors or Engineers Ireland to act as inspectors and to sign certificates at various stages during construction and on completion of developments to say that the correct steps have been taken and that the development complies with building regulations. That certificate, on completion, has to be signed by the builder as well. That all sounds very positive but all the people involved are employed by the developer.

This committee, in the safe as houses report, recommended that this function be carried out by local authorities and that local authorities be properly funded to do it. Based on my research and on what I have seen in other countries, there is certainly scope for having a private element in inspection and regulation of construction, which most countries have. The really important part, however, is that somebody ensures people are doing what they are supposed to and to have visible and effective enforcement of sanctions. One of the main comparisons I carried out in my PhD was with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, which has a similar system of inspectors who are entitled to go into restaurants and places where food is being prepared or where animals are being prepared for slaughter, carry out inspections and issue notices if things are going wrong. A national regulator can take enforcement and monitor what is happening. There is no national regulator for buildings.

When I was conducting my PhD research, I wrote to every local authority to ask how many enforcement notices they had issued, because they are supposed to keep a register of enforcement notices, which is their first responsibility under the Act. When they see a breach of building regulations, the register is the first regulatory tool they have. Most of the local authorities I contacted, however, either did not have a register of enforcement notices or had a policy of never issuing enforcement notices because they were worried about being challenged by developers or having legal challenges they could not afford to fight because they had such small teams. There is a bigger question here, but the really important aspect of reform is to ensure that somebody is checking that the correct steps are being taken and that there is some accountability. Accountability will not come from changing our law and then never enforcing it; it will come when people know that it will cost them money, or that they might be convicted and prevented from tendering for other work, or even sent to jail because of what they are doing.

That is the experience of other regulated industries. Members might consider how the Revenue Commissioners act. In California, for example, members will be familiar with the tragedy of the Berkeley balcony collapse. The company responsible for that had its licence revoked. The two individuals who were the owners of the company were personally sanctioned. They cannot get their licence back for, I think, five to ten years and in order to get their licence back to build again, they have to pay the $100,000 it cost to prosecute them. They publish a register of those on whom sanctions have been imposed. They publish names, naming and shaming as the Revenue does in Ireland. All of those things are important to demonstrate that the regulatory system can be enforced. If there are a few bad apples, one still has to be able to demonstrate that one has taken action against those few bad apples to make sure everybody else complies. Otherwise, there is a system where people know they will never be caught and will not have to pay out if they are caught. There are a hell of a lot of developers being sued at the moment in relation to all the apartments we are talking about and they will never have to pay out. They are essentially being sued because otherwise the plaintiffs bringing these actions might face problems of their own for not having sued them. Their names are on High Court litigation but they will never have to pay out for it.