Mr. Damien Owens:

I will respond to the Deputy's first two questions. On the IS 465 review, as I understand it work is under way. Engineers Ireland has already been approached by NSAI to obtain some views from our registrants on foundations. It is also my understanding that a tender process has been completed to get research work done on the composition of the various components. It will be for geologists to do work on the characterisation of the materials. That work is under way. On the question of how long the work will take, I have no idea. There may be some indication made in the next session. To respond to the Deputy's point, I do not think the work will be completed before the new scheme opens. It will take time for the research to be completed. It should be allowed to be completed so that we can go forward acting on fact.

On the Deputy's second question on the issue of conflicts of opinion, our members sign up to a code of ethics and they should avoid conflicts of interest. The number of the current list of registrants is quite low, as I mentioned previously. That will increase as the scheme expands. The engineers working on the scheme are pretty much bound by geographic region. For example, an engineer who becomes a registrant in County Wexford is not going to do surveys in County Donegal. As the scheme expands, more and more engineers will become involved with it. That will increase the pool of opinions in the certifying and signing off process. Therefore, I do not have many concerns over conflicts of opinion. I will refer to one of the other witnesses to respond to the Deputy's last question.