Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister and Minister of State and wish them well in their respective roles. I thank Members for their contributions to the debate. The record of building control authorities in taking high-profile enforcement action and prosecutions has been criticised by both the Pyrite Panel in 2012 and last week by the expert panel on blockwork in Donegal and Mayo. Yesterday, the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government was reported as saying that a register of enforcement notices served and the outcome of any decision of the District Court in respect of an enforcement notice are held by Ireland's 31 building control authorities. However, as it stands, to find out statistics about building control authority enforcement, one needs to visit the offices of all 31 building control authorities during office hours. By contrast, the Food Safety Authority has a website which contains a significant amount of information across its range of activities, is updated regularly and includes details of enforcement orders issued. It operates a consumer helpline that received almost 12,000 calls in 2015. It co-ordinates inspection and reporting from around the country through 33 official agencies operating locally.

The Construction Industry Register Ireland, CIRI, which was referenced and lauded by the Minister, was created by the construction industry. It is like putting the foxes in charge of the hen house. The fact that CIRI will be separate from the Government's planned lead local authority is very problematic because it is a requirement for registration with CIRI that an applicant declares convictions under the Building Control Acts. As was reported yesterday, convictions under the Building Control Act are not recorded centrally but are on 31 registers throughout the country. I would like clarity from the Minister as to how the CIRI admissions board will check that an applicant or a registered member is telling the truth about previous convictions. How will the CIRI board verify information from applicants from overseas who have an entitlement to work in Ireland? If there were a national regulator with enforcement powers and centralised access to each of those 31 registers of enforcement notices and District Court orders, it would have a full picture of a person's compliance record, how many enforcement notices have been issued against him or her, whether he or she has convictions under the Act and whether he or she is a fit and proper person to be allowed to carry out building work.

No regulatory body will oversee the operation of CIRI the way that the energy regulator does for the registered electrical contractors of Ireland and registered gas installers, which are the registration bodies for electrical and gas installers. This is why our motion seeks the creation of an Irish building authority. It is not a quango. It is a regulatory body and we need a real, strong independent regulator.

There is a lot of merit in Fianna Fáil's amendment and I am glad to see it has followed our lead on the law reform needed to deal with remedies. However, its motion does not recognise that a national regulatory body would provide the essential oversight of existing building control in a manner which is not being done at present and a supervisory regulatory role in respect of the proposed construction industry register. Regrettably, the Minister cannot see the merit of this authority either. What the Minister proposes would keep these two functions separate, which makes no sense at all - one body to inspect and enforce compliance with building regulations and a totally separate private body that is given a monopoly on registration and fees for those who will be responsible for complying with those rules.

The national Building Control Management System, which was mentioned by the Minister, aims to appoint a lead local authority which will have overall responsibility for building control management on a national level. That authority will not operate as a regulator. The lead authority referenced by the Minister will have no legal obligation to exercise a regulatory oversight function in respect of the national activities of building control authorities, to co-ordinate regulatory activities and enforcement, and to publish information relating to this work.

Enforcement will continue to be decentralised among 31 building control authorities, without a single public-facing profile that could educate people about the value of building control and could publicise building control activity, including enforcement, on a regular basis in an accessible format.

People deserve better than a "wait and see" attitude from a Government that has yet to face up to the scale of the problems so many are facing, and it needs to consider practical ways in which it can help. Many home owners have spent years trying to secure legal remedies through the courts and through arbitration, putting their lives on hold while they do. In the Minister's counter-motion, it is quite clear that the Government will continue to refuse to give support to these homeowners, and that is nothing short of disgraceful and an abdication of responsibility. I welcome his call on local authorities in recent days to review multi-storey social housing units, but why not call for a nationwide audit of all multi-unit housing and a Government fund to deal with dangerous defects?

I thank the many Deputies who spoke in support of the motion. No doubt the people on the front line, the real people both in the Gallery here tonight and those at home who are affected by this through no fault of their own have hung onto every word that has been said. We, as Members of this House, must do everything in our power to protect and support homeowners whose lives have been turned upside-down and have been hurled into a heartless financial pressure zone, all as a result of greed-driven cowboy builders and we must prevent this happening to another generation of home owners.

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