Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I understand that. That is not my point. It is a problem that, in bringing forward a significant change to the two sets of regulations, which we willingly supported previously, no assessment has been done by the Minister of State or his officials of the operation of the previous two. It is not the fault of the Minister of State's Department’s or his officials that the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth on three occasions has been responsible for significant breaches. Our planning authorities should not be forced to take enforcement action against a Department, international protection accommodation services, IPAS, and commercial building owners. That is not a good situation for any of us to be in. If we want the public to support our efforts to ensure people fleeing war and persecution are adequately supported, which we do, the lack of a joined-up approach among Departments is a problem. We went through this before at some length. The Chair will recall, and Deputies O’Callaghan and McAuliffe were here. We urged the two Departments to have a joined-up approach to this. We were guaranteed it would happen but it has not to date.

I want to be supportive of this first regulation but at what point does temporary become permanent? In my constituency, I have no issue with commercial buildings being used and repurposed to provide good quality temporary accommodation for people fleeing war and persecution. Myself, Deputy Higgins and others have taken the right approach on this. However, we have to be honest with the public. If a building is going to become a permanent facility, let us say that and give it proper planning permission. If such facilities are made temporary for five years, they will become permanent.

I am saying this out of frustration. We had detailed discussions and considerations in private and public session when the previous two sets of regulations to which this relates were brought in front of us. We were given a certain level of assurances from both Departments that there would be joined-up thinking and that we would not continually extend the temporary exemptions. If stuff would be permanent or semi-permanent in the medium term, we would properly regularise it. I do not blame these regulations for the bad behaviour of other Departments or private landowners but there is a grey area. A temporary exempted development can lead some people to think the ordinary building control rules do not apply. The Minister of State said clearly and rightly they do apply but this is not a good way to proceed.

I will not stand in the way or make politics of this but I urge the Minister of State to ask his officials to talk to their counterparts in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and IPAS about a better approach to this. We should not have three local authorities forced to take enforcement action against three commercial buildings under potential licence with IPAS and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and, in two cases, putting the residents of those buildings at risk because they were not compliant with basic fire safety. I cannot stress that enough.