Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 10 March 2022

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Regulation of Providers of Building Works Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed)

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

I am not in any way being flippant with the following comment but I want to stress this. Let us imagine I am a developer and following an enforcement by a local authority, I have been found in significant breach of the building control regulations and I have been fined. Let us imagine some other legal binding documents, such as RTB determinations or planning decisions, reflect that. Publishing that but allowing me to continue to trade would be the equivalent of somebody who is convicted in the courts for serious drink driving offences not losing his or her licence but simply publishing that he or she has a conviction for serious drink driving and causing, for example, damage to persons as a result. The idea that we are saying it would still be permissible to trade for those egregious breaches is a fundamental weakness of our system. I will not labour the point. We have a lot of business to get through.

The Minister of State does not understand the opportunity that he is giving up here. I appreciate that his officials will advise him to stick to the text. That is their job. I am appealing to him at a political level, not at a Civil Service level. I mean no disrespect to the officials, who have done a good job in bringing the legislation to this point. I am appealing to him as a politician to go away and think about this. What of people who are guilty of egregious breaches of building control regulation that have had devastating impacts on people's lives, including, for example, in the case of Priory Hall? A man took his own life because of the stress and strain. To the credit of a former party colleague of the Minister of State, the former Taoiseach, Mr. Enda Kenny, at that point in time intervened and ensured the problem would be resolved, but it took that loss of life.

I am politically appealing that the Minister of State goes away and thinks about this. If we do not do it in this Bill, I guarantee I will come back to him in a few years stating that we missed an opportunity and we will not have that again, unless there is a change of Government or there is a change of policy.

I will press these amendments and I will call votes on them. I am appealing to the Minister of State to think hard about this before he discards the central proposition my party is making because we will return to this on Report Stage and in the Seanad. I would much prefer him to bring forward a much more competent and appropriate form of amendment to deal with the matter. If we do not do it here, what we are essentially saying is that people who egregiously break building control regulations and planning conditions can still trade. I accept we will force them to advertise they have a dodgy history but they will still be allowed trade. That is not a credible proposition for us to deal with the issue of building defects that we are still operating with at present.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.