Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am very much aware of quite a lot of people around the country, in the city but certainly not just in the city, who bought apartments and houses that are now in need of substantial repair. Obviously, those people bought those homes in good faith - they are not all homes and quite a lot of them are buy-to-let properties but in many ways that is beside the point. People who bought those properties in many parts of the country now face a loss in the value of their homes, which are virtually impossible to sell on. Despite the recovery in house prices, house prices in those developments have not recovered for obvious reasons. Moreover, people living in those developments are now facing very large bills to repair and bring up to standard the apartment buildings and homes they live in. It is certainly something that affects my constituency as well as the Deputy's.

A lot of reforms have been brought in since 2014, including the construction industry regulation legislation, which is coming, and the building standards and building control regulations, which set out the primary purpose for which building regulations may be made. In order to address the unacceptable situation of building failures in the past, the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations 2014 were introduced to empower competence and professionalism in construction projects and establish a chain of responsibility that begins with the owner. The owner must assign competent persons to design, build, inspect and certify the building works, who in turn must account for their contribution through the lodgment of compliance documentation, inspection plans and statutory certificates. The statutory certificate of compliance on completion, signed by both a registered construction professional and the builder, must be in place prior to occupation. Oversight of governance of the building control system is also undergoing major reform to improve its effectiveness.

The increase in construction-related insurance products also demonstrates that the insurance industry has made an assessment that the risk of building failure in regard to buildings completed in accordance with the new building control system is low. It is worth noting that the increase in the availability of construction-related insurance products, such as first-party latent defects insurance, is taking place at a time of retrenchment in the wider industry since the introduction of the Solvency II directive.

The main objective of the building control (construction industry register Ireland) Bill, which is being brought forward by the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, is to develop and promote a culture of competence and good practice in respect of and compliance with the building regulations among builders within the construction sector that will benefit the public. The establishment of a robust statutory register is critical to the development of a culture of competence.

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