Mr. Feargal ? Coigligh:

I thank the committee for the invitation to attend today’s meeting to discuss issues relating to quarries and deleterious materials. I am an assistant secretary in the housing policy, legislation and governance division of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Today, I am accompanied by my colleagues from the Department, Sarah Neary, who is the principal adviser in the building standards advisory unit, and John Wickham, who is a senior adviser in the same unit. I am also joined by Eoin McGrath, who is a senior geologist in Geological Survey Ireland.

I want to give some context to how materials are considered in the overall Irish building control system. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has policy responsibility for the implementation of the EU construction products regulation, CPR. This regulation sets out rules for the marketing of construction products to facilitate the free movement of such products within the EU. In order to achieve this, construction products for which a harmonised European product standard is in force, or for which a European technical assessment has been issued, need a declaration of performance from the manufacturer. The product must also be affixed with a CE marking before it can be placed on the internal market. There are approximately 450 harmonised standards published, covering a wide range of construction products including concrete blocks, aggregates for concrete and hardcore.

In order to affix a CE marking, most construction products require the intervention of a notified body. Notified bodies are designated bodies that carry out third-party tasks, typically being product certification bodies, factory production control certification bodies and testing laboratories. The degree of intervention by a notified body in the placing of a product on the market is set out in the relevant harmonised standard. Under the CPR, notified bodies must be established in a member state and be designated by the member state notifying authority for performing the specific tasks in relation to specific technical standards. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is the notifying authority in Ireland.

The National Standards Authority of Ireland, NSAI, which the committee will hear from shortly, has produced additional guidance for some harmonised standards under the CPR in the form of standard recommendations, SRs. These set out appropriate minimum performance levels for specific intended uses of certain construction products in Ireland. SRs outline the precautions to be taken in a quarry. One such precaution is the requirement for a geological and petrographic assessment of the raw material, that is the quarry deposit, and of the finished aggregate product for use in concrete and concrete products, and for those assessments to be carried out at regular intervals. The key objective of the geological and petrological examination is to determine if aggregates for the manufacture of concrete products are fit for purpose and if deleterious materials are present in such form or quantity that may affect end use and performance. The SRs also require third-party oversight of the manufacturing process by a notified body such as the NSAI. Ultimately, the manufacturer is responsible for compliance with the CPR and, in particular, for the declaration of performance and CE marking of the construction product he or she is placing on the market. This requires having full knowledge of the raw material and having regard to the end product's suitability for use in construction works in accordance with the relevant SRs published by the NSAI.

While the CPR concerns itself with the conditions that apply when placing a construction product on the market, specifiers, designers, builders, certifiers and end users should, when drawing up specifications, refer to the harmonised standards and specifically to the performance requirements of individual characteristics for the particular end use, as outlined in the NSAI standard recommendations. They should also review the manufacturer’s declaration of performance, check that the performance or performances declared are in line with the NSAI standard recommendation and ensure all works are carried out using “proper materials.....which are fit for the use for which they are intended and for the conditions in which they are to be used” to ensure compliance with the building regulations.

The Department also has policy responsibility for the market surveillance of construction products covered by the CPR. The aim of market surveillance activity is to ensure that non-compliant products are identified and taken off the market, with unscrupulous and, or criminal economic operators prosecuted and penalised for their actions. In this context, it is important to note that the overarching objective of a market surveillance authority is to ensure that products that comply with the provisions of the CPR are placed on the market. Where non-compliance is identified, market surveillance activities are designed to encourage economic operators to take appropriate corrective actions to redress the position within a reasonable period of time.

In Ireland, each local authority is a market surveillance authority. In addition, in 2020, to strengthen the market surveillance function, the National Building Control and Market Surveillance Office, NBCMSO, a local authority shared service hosted by Dublin City Council, was appointed as a competent authority for the carrying out of market surveillance functions for all related construction products on a nationwide basis. Ms Mairéad Phelan from that office will address this committee shortly. The NBCMSO also has enforcement powers and supports the 31 local authorities in the State in carrying out market surveillance functions. In its early years, the work of this office has concentrated on construction products generated by economic operators from quarries and pits.

Market surveillance authorities have significant powers including to obtain access to the place of manufacture or storage, request technical information, select samples of the construction product and carry out evaluations, examination or tests on such samples. Where construction products are placed on the market that do not comply with the requirements set out in the CPR, market surveillance authorities have powers to direct the relevant economic operator to take the necessary corrective actions to bring the product into compliance. Where this does not work, there are further procedures that may result in the product being withdrawn or recalled from the market, its use subject to special conditions, or its availability on the market being prohibited or restricted.

The committee will be aware of the issues that arose in County Donegal, the audit the Minister requested and the report that was published earlier today. To provide some background to that, in its role as notifying authority under the CPR, the Department received a notification from NSAI on 15 October last year regarding the withdrawal of a certificate of conformity of the factory production control for aggregate concrete masonry units from a block manufacturer in County Donegal. On foot of this notification, the Minister requested the NBCMSO, in partnership with Donegal County Council and with the support of Geological Survey Ireland, to carry out an audit of all quarries in Donegal to evaluate relevant economic operators’ compliance with the CPR when placing relevant construction products, namely aggregate concrete blocks and, or aggregates for use in concrete products, on the market. The Minister received this report on 30 November and published it this morning. Members of the committee may wish to raise issues in relation to that report.

The Department is committed to continuing to support the NBCMSO and the market surveillance authorities with the implementation of the national market surveillance strategy 2022 and the implementation of adequate controls on a risk-assessment basis to contribute to a safer market place which ensures a high level of protection of public interests. While much work has been undertaken to strengthen the regulatory framework to ensure that products from extractive industries comply with the provisions of the CPR, the Department acknowledges that there is more to do in the context of the findings of the audit report and the broader programme for Government commitments.

I thank the committee for inviting us here today. My departmental colleagues and I look forward to engaging with members on this issue and will be happy to answer any of their questions.