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

I thank Mr. Ó Coigligh for his patience with us. There are some of us who, while we acknowledge much has changed, are aware there are also things that have not changed. While it is slightly tangential to today's discussion, I have a very large building in my own constituency that has been fully occupied without a single completion certificate for many years and there does not seem to be any prospect of enforcement action or prosecution on the building control aspect of this 48-unit apartment block. It is still fighting a planning retention issue. That suggests to me, notwithstanding the significant changes both in terms of build control amendment regulations and the other things we were discussing, there are still significant opportunities for those, and it could be a very small number of individuals or companies who, if they want to break the rules, face very few consequences. I make that point because it should not be lost.

Rather than back and forth questions, it would be great if a couple of bits of information could be provided to the committee from whichever organisation can do that. It would be really good for this committee to know how many full-time equivalent building control officers we have in the State. That would be a helpful thing for us to know in our deliberations. I would also be interested to know, given that many of our building control officers are planners, engineers, sometimes roads engineers etc, if there is any sense of what the skills deficit is in the kinds of specialisms required to make some of the judgement calls in inspections for building product surveillance. Is it possible to get some sense of what that deficit is like?

I also think it would be good if someone could share with the committee the total number of products that have been withdrawn. If it were possible to have a list of those, that would be even better. If some of those have been reintroduced following re-compliance that would be useful.

For the representatives of the NSAI, I fully understand that the review of IS 465 has to be evidence and science-based. I accept that. I have raised this previously with the Minister but given the very large volume of applications in the current scheme that are stuck in stage one and cannot progress to stage two because of what we understand are conflicts between the standard and the engineer's reports, that proposition of interim technical guidance would be enormously helpful both to the local authority as well as to families. I know that also has to be grounded in science and evidence but it is not beyond the realms of possibility that if we are looking at a timeline of 2024 for the review of IS 465, it would be reasonable if it were possible for the NSAI to prioritise those interim technical guidance notes for the local authority. Otherwise, there are about 500 or 600 applications just stuck and going nowhere and our understanding from talking to engineers and officials is that interim technical guidance could unstick many of those and potentially move them into stage two. That would be enormously important because obviously we are eagerly awaiting the Department's regulations in terms of the enhanced scheme so that should lead to a significant increase in applications. If we have the same ratio of applications stuck before they progress, this could become a very big issue. I am not looking for a comment on that from Ms Larkin but just to emphasise the importance of that.

I address the last question to Mr. Ó Coigligh. It would be great to get an update on those regulations for the new scheme. I know it slightly stretches the scope of this discussion but they were meant to be ready at the end of this year. Will they be ready then or are they likely to slip into next year?

I have a final question for Ms Phelan. How does a building control official know whether a block that is fully compliant with the standard and is certified by the National Standards Authority of Ireland, NSAI, can be used in one climate and not in another? Are there technical guidance documents, for example, under the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations, that set that out clearly or is it something that they acquire? It is one thing to have a standard, the block meets the standard and the paperwork proves that, but for building control officers, even if they are inspecting those buildings, whether they are one-offs or estate builds, is that something that is set out in the technical guidance documents or is that something that needs to be revisited so that our building control officials have the competence to make those kind of judgment calls?