Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 9 May 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Modern Construction Methods: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Sean Downey:

We are aware of it. We worked with Enterprise Ireland on the initiative over the past number of years and fed into that on the submission for Part B in order that we are all aligned. What we all ask for is, referring to Mr. Kirwan’s point, that it is a fire engineering solution. We simply do not have a black and white rule whereby combustible materials cannot be used over 18 m. It has to be allowed for people to push forward. I attended the Coillte event as well. The approach of the agency from British Columbia to dealing with consultation was very interesting. It seemed it was not coming with a vested interest. It explained exactly that it was trying to move from four to six storeys and then from six to ten and the way its consultant brought the fire officers in. They are people who have to go in at 3 a.m. on a Sunday to try to get up the means of escape to bring people out. There is a way of doing it.

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