Mr. Pat Montague:

Local authorities need more resources. Building control is still hugely under-resourced in terms of personnel to carry out this work. There is an attempt at national level, in what is called the National Building Control Office, and I know there is talk of putting this on a statutory basis. It operates out of Dublin City Council at present but, in my view, what you should be looking at doing is something akin to the Revenue Commissioners or the Health and Safety Authority where you have task forces that can go in and blitz an area. You put the fear of God in people that there is a real chance they might get caught and so need to up their game. The reality is there is a bit of a myth around that the people who built these things have all gone and are not around. That is simply not true. Most of the biggest builders, and I will not mention anybody, but most of the biggest builders in this State were involved in that shoddy building and they are still operating. They are still building, some of the most high-profile companies, and they have suffered no consequences. Not one of them has put their hands in their pockets to pay for the remediation. That will be coming out of the taxpayers' pocket, not those who created this mess in the first place.