Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Due to Covid restrictions, we have three minutes left in which we can remain in this room . I will try to wrap it up. I am conscious I did not get an opportunity to speak. We spent a lot of time discussing the legalities and remediation for this issue and possibly not enough time discussing the stress and tension it has placed on people who have lived with this issue for many years. Ms Holland's submission dealt with the worry when she is putting her daughters to bed. When one buys, rents or lives in a home, one expects to be able to live in a safe place and many people do not feel that way when they are affected by this issue. When one buys any product, it is CE stamped and there is rigorous testing done on it to give confidence that it is reliable, robust and suitable for purpose. People who have purchased into many of these apartment blocks have not been given the benefit of that.

I wanted to address section 35 of the Planning and Development Act. We will not have time to answer that now but perhaps Ms Ní Fhloinn, or somebody else, could give us a written submission on that. I refer to developers who have been found not to be compliant with planning conditions in the past. I am conscious of the line between planning conditions, fire regulations and construction oversight. Where there is an architect, a designer, a developer and a number of subcontractors on site, who is responsible for not complying with the planning conditions? Who has the ultimate sign-off on it and would that be the person who is responsible for non-compliance with that?

We are talking about historical issues. What comfort could people take as we look at apartments being built at present? There is an objective in the programme for Government for the large-scale construction that will be required and it will have to be high density and multi-use. What comfort can people take, looking at that, that we have learned lessons in this regard? Ms Ní Fhloinn or Ms Cottier could wrap up on that.