Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I want to pick up on the points raised by Deputy Brady and the Cathaoirleach in regard to the National Building Control and Market Surveillance Office. We have a history of self-regulation that has been disastrous. We pay for failure but we will not pay to prevent failure. When the witnesses talked about the 100 building control staff in local authorities being part of this process, I nearly laughed. They are not doing the same thing as the staff in the National Building Control and Market Surveillance Office. Building control in the local authorities typically involves engaging with the developer when a housing estate is being built, making sure the services are being provided and things like that. They will have a bit of an overview but a lot of what they do is a paper exercise in regard to compliance. We would need an army of inspectors to stop the issues we are discussing from happening.

Local authorities never had a responsibility for the quality of building blocks or whether, for example, what was being taken out of a quarry contained pyrite. That is where the National Building Control and Market Surveillance Office is involved. It is a totally different thing. It seems there is more consumer protection when buying a bag of crisps or a packet of biscuits than when buying a home. That is because we rely on self-regulation. We are still at the point where we will pay a price in the future for not having a standard. Inspections have to happen as the buildings are being constructed. A lot of the building defects during the Celtic tiger happened because shortcuts were taken by builders and developers and despite the fact engineers are supposed to be legally obliged to sign off on things and have an indemnity. I did not see any real challenges taken in respect of that. It just does not seem to me that any significant lessons are being learned on this.

I had reason to go to the National Building Control and Market Surveillance Office recently when it was brought to my attention that some of the material being taken out of a quarry in my area could lead to problems with defective materials finding their way into the construction sector. As I said, that function is an entirely different thing from what the local authorities do. I have to say that the way the issue was handled by the office was not entirely satisfactory. It was very obvious to me that there was a really serious gap. I am not reassured at all by what has been said here today that we are not going to end up with the use of some material whose name we have not yet even heard emerging as a problem in another five years. Instead of preventing failure, another €3 billion will have to be thrown at failure.

When the Department comes back to the committee with information, will it include what initiatives are being taken to deal with preventing failure in the future? We passed legislation. We may end up with a national buildings regulator, but if that person does not have the resources to do the job, we will have a problem in the future. We must stop doing this to ourselves. Will the Department please come back with something comprehensive on this?