Mr. Maurice Buckley:

To be clear, there are standards now. There are many standards for all those different aspects of the system and the insulation. One might argue that at times there are too many standards. The trick is to provide guidance to navigate around the different systems and know what is appropriate in different areas. So the question of retrofit does not apply here because the standards exist.

It is possible to say what best practice is, and nobody would disagree on what it is. The problem is where best practice has not been followed. So retrofit is appropriate in individual developments where it is found that the workmanship was not up to scratch.

We are faced with all of these horrendous issues at the moment - for example, whether developers are still available in order to challenge and chase them for unsafe workmanship? The standard provides the reference point. The technical standard has not dramatically changed over time and there has been steady progression. Ireland has followed and adopted all of the best practice as it happened. The issue is to ensure that the standard is properly used across the industry.