John Dennehy (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I notice when perusing the Bill there are just two prescribed associations or bodies identified as the ones to administer the system, that is, the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland and the Society of Chartered Surveyors. I am not sure if there are other professional bodies to which one can belong and still be fully recognised or if they are named purely to administer the system or if one has to be a member of those associations. In fairness it is more out of curiosity than concern that I raise this but, bearing in mind what I said previously that we should build in flexibility, there are at least three accountancy bodies practising. Is there a facility for any other representative body to be recognised, if established, under the legislation? There could well be a group which may wish to have an organisation called the architects society and which may not be happy with the word "royal" included in the description of their association. If we are prescriptive and too strict we may find ourselves in trouble later and going to Europe to contest a case because we passed bad legislation. It may well be that I am concerned about nothing, that these two groups will administer the scheme and that there can be a variety of other associations.

In opening the debate the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, said one of the most important sections of the Bill deals with fire safety. That area is in need of urgent attention. There are huge gaps in the fire requirements in general. There have been many unfortunate happenings, including the Stardust disaster, to which the Minister and other speakers referred. I have said previously at local level and in the House that fire is no respecter of age, gender, race or any other aspect of human life. We should all be aware that if we make mistakes or get careless about its prevention fire will take its toll, which is a fact of life. The severity of that toll can depend on many different factors. Part of our job as legislators must be to put in place rules and regulations that will control as many of these factors as possible. More importantly, we must ensure there is a requirement that they be enforced, whether it is control of the design of buildings, the use of appropriate building materials at the outset or a check on overcrowding when buildings are in use. All possible precautions against fire must be enforced.

I accept that investigation afterwards and recommendations about change practices and so on can help in future prevention but as the Minister said we must take every precaution possible before the event happens to avoid tragedies such as the Stardust disaster. We are lackadaisical in many ways about fire hazards, an issue to which I will return.

I avail of this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of the fire fighters throughout the country, both the professionals and the volunteers who often have to put their lives at risk to deal with outbreaks of fire. They see it and we recognise it as part of their job. It is not acceptable that their job should be made more hazardous by reason of bad building practices or carelessness in regard to storage of materials, lack of egress or access and that other avoidable issues continue to be allowed.

I have had the experience of calling the fire service to a serious fire where the hydrant had tarmac laid over it and it could not be found. That was a personal experience. The fire fighters with whom I am most familiar because of my years in Cork Corporation are the Cork city fire service members. They have an excellent record and play a huge role in fire prevention. They do that by virtue of the role they play in visiting schools, giving lectures, working with companies and in other areas of public activity. They give professional advice that should be listened to, adhered to and enforced. It is important that the fire fighters, the fire chiefs, have legal back-up to enforce their professional judgment where necessary. Whether it is overcrowding of bars or other gathering points, the provision of the escape mechanisms or any other issue on which they are called to advise, they should have the overriding powers. There can be a clash between that knowledge and the knowledge of planners. The fire chief or the highest ranking fire officer in an area has the expertise and must have the final say in matters relating to fire and fire precaution. It is imperative that we arm the powers that be in all walks of life with the necessary back-up but they must be able to enforce their professional judgment on such matters. In the new era of high-rise buildings we need the professional fire person to be the final arbiter in matters relating to fire, fire escape and so on.

One of the most dangerous aspects of fire is that none of us believes it can happen us. We may put a fire alarm in place. I became aware of that type of thinking in action through my own family. A brother of mine had refurbished our old family home which was a four-storey building. He slabbed off the top storey which would be used for attic-type storage space. In slabbing off that building he used soft building materials which were probably suitable for various jobs but not for that one. When he had it inspected by the local authority fire officer, the inspector refused to pass it on the grounds that the slabs had to be fireproof plaster board slabs. I confess I and the rest of us thought he was being extreme, particularly given the huge amount of money that had been spent on the refurbishment.

Approximately six months later at 2 a.m. a taxi driver, driving near Shandon which is the highest area in Cork, saw, half a mile away, flames coming through the roof of the building. He drove to what had been my family home, hammered on the door because everybody was asleep, and eventually the six occupants inside came out. When they awoke in the third storey, the bedrooms, the ceiling was a red mass. Were it not for the inspector's report and the insistence on slabbing there would have been six fatalities. That was a good lesson for us. Since then I have been on the side of enforcement whereas previously I might have made excuses that people did not have the money to put in place certain facilities, particularly in households. I no longer tolerate any arguments against fire safety. It was a personal experience but the inspection by that inspector saved their lives. I am sure there are many other instances where the same has happened.

Much of the building boom consists of high-rise developments. No doubt we have all seen "Towering Inferno" and said it was a great film, very exciting and so on but it is only a film. Arising out of that, there are many serious questions. I ask whether, in regard to the county hall in Cork, the trade union building, Liberty Hall and many other buildings, we have the ability to fight a fire in them. We certainly do not have the fleet of helicopters that were available to the fire chief in the film. We have Snorkels, which I believe extend only four or five storeys, perhaps a few more, and I certainly do not believe we have any apparatus for fighting fires in the upper sections of the new high-rise developments.

I am very concerned that commercial arguments and the push for development will take precedence over fire safety requirements. We should not wait for EU directives to address such matters. In this regard, consider the Seveso directive which addresses the danger of explosions and fires in industries using hazardous materials. No authority in the country had an idea of what was involved in this matter until the Seveso directive came into being. This prohibits the construction of buildings in which people gather if they are proposed to be located within a certain distance of industries using hazardous materials. In some cases, this distance is a kilometre. There was uproar over this. We were not aware of the directive and wanted to proceed with development. Too often we wait for directives from the European Union before we take action. I am concerned that this will lead to a serious incident.

Most Irish towns and cities came into being as rural communities grew and everybody knew what was required when something went wrong. Circumstances have changed and we must try to ensure through legislation such as the Building Control Bill that we do not make matters worse. More exacting standards for non-domestic developments in particular and greater penalties for breaches of the law will help prevent the construction of cowboy developments whose backers have much to gain, even if they have to pay the maximum fine.

I am sure the Minister of State, Deputy Gallagher, will share my concerns over high-density and high-rise developments. When considering high-rise apartment blocks, we should learn from the mistakes we made in places such as Ballymun in Dublin and various parts of Cork city, including Mayfield. The Deanrock estate in Togher is a case in point. Such projects were developed in times of panic when the accommodation list became very lengthy. People opted for high-rise developments that appeared to be good at the time, but these developments did not last too long as we are now demolishing them and trying to return to more normal types of development. The projects were ill-fated and gave local authority housing a bad name in several instances. In the case of Ballymun, the apartment blocks made people fear high-rise development. We paid for poor planning and a lack of vision in that the developments have now been demolished. In the case of the Deanrock estate in Togher, demolition in pending. Problems associated with high-rise development, such as traffic congestion, the colonising of surrounding residential areas to meet parking needs and, perhaps most important, the damage caused to neighbourhood identity, are all negative issues and need to be considered and addressed.

The driving force behind proposals for high-rise developments is the stated need for more accommodation. We are sympathetic to this as there is increased need for accommodation in urban areas in particular. Some suggest the only way is up but, while high-rise development is a means of achieving higher density, it is not the only way. It is possible to maximise density without reaching for the skies. In this regard, we require balance and a bit of common sense. We have suffered because of high-rise development, particularly in the case of Ballymun. New developments should enhance rather than detract from the environments in which they are located. Fire control authorities rather than architects and housing officers should be the ones asked for their professional judgment in this regard.

The third important element in this Bill concerns energy efficiency. In this regard we are only now complying with a relevant European directive, which proves the point I made on the Seveso directive. We could have been much more proactive. After the fuel scare some years ago, we became very enthusiastic about power and heat generation projects. In one case, the ESB and Bord Gáis together partly funded a hospital-wide project for Cork University Hospital. The project was unique in that the ESB and Bord Gáis, which might be seen as rivals, were brought together. However, the need was acknowledged and dealt with.

Our enthusiasm seems to vary according to the price and availability of oil or gas. There is much more we could do in securing energy efficiency. For the past two years, those involved in providing double and treble glazing have been working on new seal systems but they have been doing so on their own initiative and not on the basis of a legal requirement. We should have been pushing this some years ago.

I welcome the Bill and believe it should be implemented as quickly as possible.

See this speech in context