Mr. Dennis Keeley:

I thank the Chair and committee members for the invitation and welcome the opportunity to attend and discuss fire safety issues, specifically the review of part B of the fire safety building regulations. I am the chief fire officer for Dublin Fire Brigade. I am accompanied by my colleague, Ms Mary O'Brien, assistant chief fire officer. Dublin Fire Brigade provides the function of the fire authority for four Dublin local authorities, namely, Dublin City Council, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, South Dublin County Council and Fingal County Council. This includes the administration of part B of the building regulations in the Dublin region.

The functions of a fire authority as prescribed in the Fire Services Acts of 1981 and 2003 are to make provision for the prompt and efficient extinguishment of fire, to establish and maintain a fire brigade and to make provision to respond to calls. The principle objectives of Dublin Fire Brigade are to respond and deal with fire and medical emergencies as statutorily obliged. Additionally, our objective is to promote fire safety through education and advice and to help to ensure that fire safety standards are being adhered to in existing buildings.

We are tasked to act as regulators to enforce the building control regulations and to ensure compliance with building regulations is achieved through good building design practice by competent professional designers. Consequently, our role is to ensure best practice in terms of fire safety in both new and existing buildings. The Fire Services Acts and building control legislation provide us with powers of inspection and enforcement.

The Building Control Acts of 1990 and 2007 govern the design and construction of buildings. They provide for the making of the building regulations and building control regulations, and the setting up of building control authorities with powers of inspection and enforcement. The second Schedule of the building regulations sets out the 12 distinct parts of the building regulations, Parts A to M, including fire, which is addressed specifically in Part B. The building regulations are not prescriptive but are performance-based regulations. Dublin Fire Brigade administers Part B of the building regulations. Each part is accompanied by a technical guidance document, TGD, and Dublin Fire Brigade primarily deals with TGDB. Works carried out in accordance with TGDB are assumed to demonstrate prima facieevidence of compliance with building regulations.

The building control regulations 1997 to 2023 set out procedures and controls which require owners, builders, and registered construction professionals to demonstrate through the Statutory Register of Building Control Activity that the works or buildings concerned have been designed and constructed in compliance with building regulations. Building control regulations apply to the construction of new buildings and to existing buildings which undergo an extension, a material alteration or a material change of use, with some exceptions. It is a statutory requirement of the building control regulations that a fire safety certificate must be sought and obtained for the construction, material alteration, material change of use or extension to a building.

Dublin Fire Brigade, working in conjunction with the building control authorities of the four Dublin councils, processes approximately 1,400 fire safety certificate applications per annum. A fire safety certificate, once granted, indicates that a building, if built in accordance with the design submitted, will be in accordance with building regulations. It is the responsibility of the designer, the builder and the owner to ensure that the building is built in accordance with the fire safety certificate and the building regulations.

Designers rely on the guidance in TGDB to demonstrate compliance with building regulations. The current TGDB was produced in 2006 and is currently subject to review and updating by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Dublin Fire Brigade took part in the public consultation along with other stakeholders. We submitted comments and highlighted areas for consideration as well as points to be included or strengthened in the final document. Dublin Fire Brigade was also part of a national submission by the Chief Fire Officers Association, CFOA, that considered the comments of fire authorities nationally. The areas we have identified, in no particular order, that should be included or strengthened in the final document include a regulatory impact analysis review of Part B (Fire Safety) of the building regulations, B5 amendment; alternative designs and fire safety engineering approach to compliance; sustainability in building practice – future steps; modern methods of construction, MMCs; green walls and roofs; car parks; nursing homes; evacuation and ventilation strategies in residential buildings; vertical escape and fire fighting in residential buildings; common non-complex building types and scope; and separate guidance.

Dublin Fire Brigade supports environmentally sustainable development and the rapid construction of homes in the context of the housing crisis. We recognise the role that MMCs can play in achieving the Government's housing targets but fire safety should be integral to the adoption of these methods. Traditional construction systems such as reinforced concrete structures or steel have undergone a vast amount of large-scale testing which provides confidence and resilience in this type of construction system. Steel and concrete-type construction have their own issues with fire if not adequately addressed from a design perspective but fire safety design using these construction types is well known and has been practised widely over a sustained period, with lessons learned and changes adopted when necessary. MMCs are new and innovative designs. Generally they are faster in delivery and environmentally more suitable. Dublin Fire Brigade is meeting with designers, seeking extra test data, reviewing advanced analysis, and increasing our understanding of these methods to understand their use and their performance in a fire event. We suggest that reference to these types of construction in the new TGDB will greatly help designers to demonstrate compliance and regulators to determine such compliance. Guidance is needed to promote consistency across the industry and for all stakeholders. In order to ensure that appropriate guidance is in place, more regular amendments and updates to TGDB may be required to ensure that there is clear guidance in relation to these and other MMCs that emerge and to ensure that buildings are designed and constructed safely.

Dublin Fire Brigade welcomes the publication of and the public consultation on the updated TGDB 2023 - Volume 1 – buildings other than dwelling. We acknowledge the significant work that has gone into its development and publication and look forward to its final publication in due course. Additionally we welcome the new regulation B12 and look forward to future supporting guidance in this area. It will be important guidance for designers and regulators in establishing compliance with building regulations and continuing to provide prima facie compliance with building regulations B1 to B5, and to the new B12, as they relate to the future development of the built environment.

Dublin Fire Brigade has been actively supportive in the early review and development of the updated document, working collaboratively with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage on it. Additionally, in recent times we worked collaboratively with the Department and stakeholders across the sector as part of a consultative committee. We continued working closely with the Department to support the public consultation and the final publication.

Dublin Fire Brigade fully supports the updating of TGDB and trusts that our comments, observations and submissions are useful and constructive. We are available to offer assistance in progressing fire safety guidance towards the continued improvement of current and future design and construction of buildings in Ireland. We have been invited to work with the Department and other stakeholders in the development of topics for further research and we welcome this new endeavour and the opportunity it represents. We suggest that more frequent updates of the TGDB should occur to embrace any new research and to keep apace of changing technologies and innovative construction methods. This would be very beneficial for all stakeholders and would keep our building standards in line with international best practice, to continue to deliver a safe built environment in Ireland.