Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

This is a long-awaited Bill. Many of us have received numerous representations particularly with regard to professional qualifications and registration of those qualifications. The provisions within the Bill in that context are very welcome.

The Bill also gives us an opportunity to talk about the construction industry in general and Government policies on construction. Given the hand-in-glove relationship between the largest party in Government and the construction industry, it might be in better order to call this the "Building Out of Control Bill". Many aspects of construction, over the last decade in particular, have brought about severe social and environmental consequences, with which Government policies have been unable to deal.

It has been boasted that one third of all residences in this country have been built since 1995, a frightening statistic. It is proof positive that much of that building has been done in an unregulated and unplanned way and has produced buildings of dubious quality for which we, as a society, will pay for many generations. Even the provisions within this Bill that address future building and bringing about better standards of construction, particularly in the area of energy efficiency, seem very much an exercise in closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Given the housing stock that already exists in our society and the wanton way in which construction was allowed to take place, this Bill is several years too late. We must put on the record of the House the failure of Government policies to put in place legislation of this type when it was needed for the type of construction that has been taking place here.

We have curious planning laws that on paper allow maximum public participation in terms of allowing concerns to be placed on record and responded to. However, the reality for many individual citizens and communities is that the planning system is unable to respond, partly because the resources of individual local authorities are far from adequate but mainly because of an attitude fostered by this Government, and by the largest party in Government in particular, that all development, of any type, is always welcome. If there is any need for legislation on building control, it must be to challenge this particular philosophy. The idea that cranes dotted across the skyline are themselves inherently good and what is being constructed will be to the betterment of our society needs to be questioned.

While there are provisions in the Bill that address different types of quality control, much of which has been imposed on the Government through European Union legislation, there is nothing in it that deals with the aesthetics of quality control and the type of ugly, dull, cold, functional buildings that are dotted around the country, with no thought for what we are bequeathing to future generations. It is a major flaw in our planning systems that planning applications cannot be refused on the basis that the buildings being proposed do not fit in with the existing built environment and are just plain ugly in terms of what is being proposed and what is eventually constructed.

In the context of the construction boom we have had since the 1990s, we are developing within our town and city centres a type of blandness that takes away any sense of the character of these areas that would have been slowly built up over generations by using traditional materials and styles of architecture. In pursuing an agenda of getting the maximum number of buildings up in the quickest possible time while making the largest amount of profit, we are wasting the architectural credit that we have built up through the years. That one can pass through any town without being able to identify particular characteristics that differentiate it from any other Irish centre is a tragedy. If we are serious about building control, that is an area the legislation should address.

There are other issues that are of more immediate concern. Part of this has to do not only with the control of building in terms of quality but also with the quality of builders. The Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, a constituency colleague would not have been present at a recent meeting with Cork building unions where there was a discussion on difficulties on building sites and how subcontractors are sourcing workers to work on many of the construction sites in our constituency. This raises concerns about how wages are being undercut, how workers from outside the country are being abused in terms of their rights and entitlements and how the quality of the work on the construction sites may be compromised because of the pursuit of maximising profit and making use of whatever advantages exist for construction companies while the going is good.

Today the European Central Bank increased by 0.25% the bank interest rate for the second time in six months. It is likely that by the end of the year the bank lending rate will have increased by a full percentage point. We are living in a society where indebtedness, mainly caused by huge mortgages, for each citizen is 160% of their average income. We have pursued this policy of untargeted tax reliefs from which individuals and companies have gained huge benefits from creating buildings that are little more than cardboard boxes in which people must live subsequently, and the only people who appear to have benefited has been that small cohort in society.

Government policies are directly responsible for this huge imbalance in what is being built, where it is built, for whom it is being built and who is benefiting from it. There is a need for a wiser Government to look at a longer-term picture of planning and development. Certainly this is not such a Government. This has been a short-term, get rich quick Government in terms of construction. There is a price to be paid for deserts of housing estates, one after the other, without proper social facilities, transport links and the basic infrastructure of water and sewerage systems. On these grounds the Government must stand indicted.

We have created an environment in terms of our buildings in which people cannot expect anything more than the lowest possible standard. If we are looking for hope in regard to our future building stock, it must come through the various EU directives because it will come directly from this Government. The need to take responsibility for what is being built and how it is built will not come from the Government because of the nature of its relationship with the construction industry. We must enforce standards that are imposed on us from outside, the type that exist in other European countries where the question asked is why what is being built is being built. In the current climate it does not seem important to ask that question because building in itself has the value the Government decides. Until we get away from that type of ghettoising approach, not much will change in that area.

Where the Bill is also deficient and where it could have had more pointers to the future is not only in the area of energy efficiency but also in directing future construction along the right types of building materials or at least a more diversified use of building materials. The excessive use of concrete has led to massive environmental consequences not only in terms of energy efficiency but the pock-marked nature of many landscapes throughout the country from quarrying.

While I realise the Minister of State is going to further fields in future elections, not far from the constituency we represent in east Cork is the Midleton-Carrigtwohill area. Anyone who has seen the aerial photographs taken of the area would think they were looking at either a lunar landscape or some type of advanced golf course for hard-bitten golfers who want to get out of bunkers that are 40 feet deep. Those are the environmental consequences of a building programme that is reliant almost solely on concrete materials.

There are alternatives that are not only cheaper to make and provide more cost effective and more heat efficient housing but also give people an opportunity of getting into the house market at a level they can afford. The burden of debt by which people are being crippled is beyond understanding and will be beyond forgiveness when the bubble eventually bursts. We are not talking about bank interest rate increases of 0.25% but 1% increases at a time, and that is not too far away.

I would not consider myself particularly aged but I have certainly slipped into middle age and have 18 years of marriage behind me. I bought a house in 1987 for the princely sum of £24,500 for which I got a housing finance agency loan of €17,000. I managed to get €3,000 from the local credit union, supposedly for house furnishings which did not arrive for several years later, and the balance from a relative in England who gave me a £5,000 sterling loan which I paid back at terms. When I think of what my wife and I had to go through 20 years ago, I try to put myself in the position of young couples who are trying to do exactly the same a generation later and I do not know how they do it. I barely did it then. It is obvious they are doing it through the finance packages being offered by financial institutions of 100% loans, grant-parenting mortgages where parents act as guarantors for whatever mortgage loans are available and, increasingly, through getting 30 or 40-year mortgages.

If this is the society we are seeking to build, where houses are little more than cardboard boxes because of the lack of building control, I would like someone to take responsibility and not boast and gloat about activity that in many respects has been damaging and fruitless for those who end up living in these houses. We have not built houses worth living in. We have destroyed communities that should have been fostered and on these grounds the Building Control Bill will do little to solve the problems that have been created.

I would like to finish by welcoming the aspects of the Bill that will further improve standards in building control. We have talked about the professional qualifications and the register of those qualifications. The energy efficiency rating for future building is long overdue and I would like to see it made retrospective. The real challenge for any future Government is to ensure that future housing stock is energy efficient and the existing housing stock is made energy efficient. That is the problem that needs to be tackled in light of our greenhouse gas emissions.

I share the fear expressed by previous speakers that, regardless of the form in which this Bill — which I suspect is relatively uncontentious — is passed by this House, the current problems will continue when the Bill comes to be implemented by local authorities. Due to lack of resources and personnel, local authority planning and building control departments cannot cope with the amount of work that is currently asked of them. Given that the Bill will ask local authorities to do even more work that is of a higher standard, I fear this string will be stretched even further. Although the intention behind the Bill is to improve quality, I suspect quality might slip even further unless the Government is prepared to back up that intention with appropriate resources on a large scale. If the problems I have outlined intensify in the future, none of us will take any great pleasure in the situation.

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