Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I like that word "envisaged". If the Deputy had said "decided", it would have been more accurate because we know it has been decided but I will not quibble over that word. The problem is this register will be located in the same building as the Construction Industry Federation. It will be staffed in the main by staff from the CIF. If people have to make telephone calls to the registration body or go to meet it, that will be channelled through the infrastructure of the CIF.

A crucial point is that in order to restore absolute confidence that we are never going back to the bad old days of the Celtic tiger the legislation not only has to ensure it is fully independent and competent to its functions but the public has to be able to have confidence in it. The perception is as important as the reality. Have any cases been taken against any contractors under the voluntary register? I do not think they have. Have any sanctions been applied to remove people from the voluntary register? I do not think they have. If the Minister of State has figures in that regard, I would be very keen for him to share them. Basing it on the same model we have for the Society of Chartered Surveyors, for example, or the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, is a flawed approach. That approach has all sorts of problems.

The Government has a programme for Government commitment to actively examine the recommendations of the previous Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government report on building control and consumer protection, Safe as Houses?. One of the things that report strongly recommended was a stand-alone building control and consumer protection agency which would be the location for, among other things, the construction industry register. A review was recently undertaken of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. I know the report has not yet been published but it has been so widely leaked I think most of us have read it at this stage. That report makes some sensible recommendations for how to transform that agency from a function of the Department through a number of phases to, at some point in the future, become a fully independent body. That is the report's recommendation and I support it fully. This Bill would have been the ideal opportunity to do that with the NBCO.

I have a two-part question for the Minister of State and I will not repeat the questions which prompted the technical answer he has given us. Why does he believe the CIF is the right place to locate this register? If it is about skills and competence in the building industry, the officials in the NBCO have just as many skills and as much knowledge of the good, bad and ugly of the industry. Likewise, why does the Minister of State not believe the NBCO would be the right place? It just makes eminent sense. It is fine that the Attorney General has advised that the legislation should not name the organisation. I am sure there are ways of doing it. I am at a loss to understand why this is the proposition but I will hazard a guess. I mean no disrespect to the Minister of State or his officials but given the long history of opposition to a statutory register by the construction industry, in particular, the CIF, I suspect that at a time long before the Minister of State and I were elected to this House, a compromise was reached in order to get the CIF on board with the proposition of a register that it would be located with the federation. That was likely the trade-off to allow the proposal to progress. If I am correct in that, and one day we will get the documents under freedom of information to establish whether that is true, it is a very bad proposition. This register should be independent and should be seen to be independent and, therefore, I think the spirit of my amendment, if not the technical quality of it, stands. That is why I will continue to press it.