Mr. Hubert Fitzpatrick:

In the event of a dispute over building controls, there is scope to refer an issue to the Building Control Authority for clarity. With regard to penalties and people losing their livelihood, other penalties are incorporated in the Building Control Act, up to and including imprisonment, and these penalties must remain.

The certificates which apply are mandatory and there is no scope for changing any word in them. The certificate is prescribed in statutory instruments.

I am not sure whether retrospective application is feasible. The issue with regard to the BCAR is that people are appointed at particular times to do jobs during the process. I do not know how any of this could be done retrospectively.

I do not agree the cost of compliance is €35,000. Perhaps people are incorporating all of the planning application fees, design fees and the preparation of all the drawings. The cost of appointing a signed certifier is approximately €2,000 or €2,500 and perhaps less if it is of scale. We do not feel the cost of complying with the BCAR is prohibitive in any way or adds significantly to the cost of building.

Deputy O'Dowd spoke about being cynical because of past experience, and the case to which he referred should not happen and there is no condoning this type of behaviour. This is the type of behaviour we want to root out of the overall system. We do not want this type of person involved in building. We want to ensure we have an effective statutory registration of builder scheme in place. Individuals who have undertaken work of this nature have no place in the industry and they should be deprived of the right to build again. We want a system with teeth, which will work for the betterment of the consumer and the industry. We want a registration of builder scheme up and running with full power and independence to deal with these issues. We want to ensure continued vigilance to ensure requirements are dealt with.

There is a skills shortage. We have undertaken a major study on this in recent months, which has identified a significant skills shortage. We need major recruitment of new apprentices and professionals in the industry because we will have an acute shortage of people for the construction industry in the coming years.