Ms Mair?ad Phelan:

The Senator's first question related to the independent business unit within Dublin City Council. We are what is called a shared service. The shared services initiative was one of the Government reform programmes for local government. The County and City Management Association, CCMA, realised we had a severe difficulty in implementing building control in Ireland. The CCMA provided for one unit to do a standardised implementation of building control across the 31 local authorities, and one IT system for submission of fire safety certificate commencement notices, so that we would have one standardised system throughout the country. We in the office can then look at every single submission and commencement in the whole country, risk-assess it, look at who is doing what, look at who is building what and where, consider how they are showing compliance with the requirements of the building regulations, and look at the standard of drawings and compliance documentation that is submitted. It is paid for out of the purses of every single local authority based on size. Dublin City Council, being the largest local authority, obviously pays the most to support the office.

On part D of the building regulations and competent builders, the big problem in Ireland is we have this attitude that anybody can build and that is not so. Building is a science that people need to learn. We had the master craftsman, the master builder and the City And Guilds years ago, and a guy or girl served their time for a number of years with a small or large master builder. We now have a situation where anybody can call himself or herself a builder and anybody can submit a commencement notice. That is a major issue. The training of craftspeople apprentices is not that visible. If we look at the apprenticeships online for people, there are very few positions. As an industry, we need to provide a situation where crafts, such as plasterers, block layers, builders and carpenters, are a first-line opportunity for leaving certificate students as opposed to a fallback position.

It is a big problem for us. We spend quite a lot of our time on sites explaining to builders how to build and read the instructions on the products and asking them whether the product they are using is fit for purpose, whether they checked the rain and exposure conditions, what they are going to use it for and if it will work with the other products they are using. That is the biggest problem we face. I am not sure how to rectify it but we need a training system, competent builders and a register of proper builders.