Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the witnesses for being here today and for the work that they do, which is often in some ways unheralded until it comes into focus. I do not think anybody will mind me singling out members of the fire service and the work that they do both in Dublin, which I am very familiar with, and across the whole country in respect of both full-time and retained fire services. What the regulations hope to do is to avoid the very serious incidents we have seen, one of which has made me most interested in this area, namely, the incident in the Metro Hotel in Ballymun. It brought to mind two questions. The first is on the materials that are being used in the design of buildings, and in particular the cladding, which I believe is the one that has got most focus with its combustible nature. The second element is the ability of the fire services to deal with extinguishing a fire at a height. I might go to Ms Neary first on the issues around the regulations and how we might address that issue of combustible cladding, combustible materials being used in buildings and the complexity that height provides in that scenario. I will come back to the chief on the ability of the fire brigade to respond in an incident.