Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

As the Minister of State knows, building control compliance is an obsession of mine. Given the size and scale of the facilities, and that the primary objective is to ensure greater compliance with environmental and public health requirements, would it not make sense, particularly in the early stages of rolling out the new exempted development category, for local authorities in areas where such facilities are more likely to be built to be required to implement a minimum expectation level or spot-inspection rate of, say, 10% or 15%? Currently with building control, there is a protocol established between the Department and the local authorities such that local authorities are meant to inspect up to 15% of new building projects. Dublin City Council, for example, has a very good regime. It inspects 100% of multi-unit developments. Is there an argument that the Department of Housing, in its building control function, should require the early stages of the roll-out to include a specific focus on ensuring things are done right? What the Minister of State does not want is for something to go wrong only for me to come back to him at a committee meeting asking why we did not check earlier. If we just leave it to the building control sections, it could become an issue. As the Minister of State knows from the situation in Waterford, and as I know from Dublin, these sections are chronically understaffed and already very stretched. If there is to be a new area of building control activity, the likelihood of them being able to inspect of their own volition is limited, unless we ask them to do it. I am not asking the Minister of State to commit to anything here, but there is a conversation to be had.