Ms Deirdre Ní Fhloinn:

There is a failure of prosecutions in part because the building control authorities are not funded properly and incentivised to carry out proper enforcement. A senior building control officer for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea gave evidence to the Grenfell inquiry that ten qualified building surveyors had been let go from that authority and one graduate trainee had been taken on to do the same work.

As Deputy Ó Broin mentioned, this system was designed in the 1980s to minimise any liability for building control authorities. That is clear from the Dáil debates and it is clear from a memorandum that was sent to the then Taoiseach following the Stardust nightclub fire.

The system was set up to be light touch and the Building Control Act itself does not require a building control authority to go out and inspect any building. It specifically states a building control authority does not need to read and verify the information it is sent with certificates of compliance and all the information that has to be sent in. It is a bigger problem than has been referred to. It is not really just about the chain of liability. It is that there are pockets of liability, such as architects and engineers who sign certificates and typically carry insurance, and then there are pockets of virtually no risk and no liability, which are the builders and developers who can set up what we used to call €2 companies and build and develop without carrying any insurance or having to have any money in the bank, as they do in Queensland, Australia for example, and without having to have a licence from any regulator that is external to their own industry.