Mr. Eoin O'Dowd:

That is a very interesting question on cladding systems. Incidents that have occurred throughout the world were foremost in our thoughts but did not limit our thoughts on the redevelopment in 2024 of Part B of the building regulations and the technical guidance supporting them. Included in the modifications to the legal text, the functional requirements are set out under the second schedule to the building regulations, which is regulation B4 on external fire spread. The 2024 amendment includes a new sub-clause to that legal requirement to inhibit fire spread on the face of the building. What this means is that irrespective of the approach used, that is the requirement that must be met. In support of meeting that functional requirement, section 4 of technical guidance document B, on external fire spread, has been updated whereby for all buildings with topmost floor height measured from the ground level to the deck of the floor above 15 m, the external facade system from the lowest level must achieve a reaction to fire classification to a European class system. We term this a class A2, which is tantamount to being of limited combustibility.