Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 3 July 2018
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Role and Operation of National Development Finance Agency: Discussion
1:30 pm
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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There is a serious risk that the NDFA is in breach of the law with regard to what is to happen. The Building Control Act stipulates clearly that the subcontractors must certify that their work is up to standard. We are creating environments in which children will be running around for up to eight hours a day where we will not have that certification. We have a secondary safeguard - the independent inspector. That will now be the only safeguard, but that is not what should happen. I recall when HomeBond inspectors visited building sites for insurance purposes when concrete was being poured. People were pulling steel out of it just as the HomeBond inspectors were walking off the site. These are the things that happened. I am not suggesting it is happening in this case or with the contractors I have met. However, the reason we require the subcontractors to certify their work is that they are liable for it. That is the protection.