Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the work and support of the Chairman of the committee, Deputy Maria Bailey, during the committee's proceedings and the production of the report. The origins of the report lie in the experience of many of us in working with residents who live in buildings with latent defects that were built during the Celtic tiger period. From my experience in Clondalkin and Lucan, I understand it was not just private developers who were responsible for building homes to a poor standard because there are, in fact, legacy defects in a significant number of social housing developments built during the boom.

We decided as a committee that we would examine this issue, particularly the changes introduced by the Government in 2014, to determine the extent to which we felt they were positive, whether further changes were required, and the further policy proposals we would like to make to strengthen the regulatory regime and ensure latent defects become a thing of the past. We wanted to ensure measures would be put in place to assist those living with latent defects in dealing with problems that were not of their making.

Before 2014, many of the developments that are now household names across the country were the result of bad government regulation and bad building and materials. The people left living in those buildings had very poor consumer protection to deal with the problems they found. While the committee was firmly of the view that the changes introduced in 2014 were significant and marked an improvement, its view was that they simply did not go far enough. That is why we made a number of very specific recommendations, not to discard the changes but to build on them and improve them for people into the future.

We had a number of public hearings. We heard from a wide range of statutory bodies, private sector representatives and homeowners. There were a number of private engagements, including with building control officers who might not have felt comfortable appearing before the committee and with people in developments whose details have yet to come into the public domain who wanted to give us their views.

It is significant that this report was adopted unanimously by the committee. The recommendations, therefore, bear the fingerprints of all of us on the committee as opposed to any individual.

I want to spend the bulk of my time talking about the recommendations, which fall into four very clear areas. We were very conscious that we did not want to disrupt or introduce changes that would take a long time make. We wanted to try to build on the blocks that already exist.

The first set of recommendations, on building standards and the need for a building standards and consumer protection agency, are very straightforward. The objective is to put in place an agency that will sit above building control authorities or local authorities and act in some respects not unlike the Consumer Protection Agency or Food Safety Authority to ensure quality standards and consistency of approach to assist building control authorities to do their job to the best of their ability, to share best practice and to assist where further improvement might be needed.

Another objective is to have an agency act as a hub for people who discover latent defects, such that they can go to somewhere independent that provides them with information, guidance and, potentially, mediation facilities to deal with issues arising from latent defects so there will be a non-judicial recourse mechanism.

We strongly felt the construction industry register, which we all want to see and in respect of which we all want to see the legislation progress, would be better placed in an independent body as opposed to within and alongside the Construction Industry Federation. That was a very important proposal agreed by the committee.

The building standards and consumer protection agency could also have a role in construction qualifications registration as well as being the custodian of the building control management system. I refer to the computer database at the heart of the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations of 2014.

Our second set of recommendations deals specifically with the 2014 regulations. A strong view was expressed by the committee at a very early stage that what it wanted was a fully independent inspection regime. The idea was that self-certification or even independent certification, or having certifiers employed by the developer, no matter how professional and independent, was not the best approach. Our preference is that, irrespective of whether the local authority uses private individuals or employs the certifiers on a full-time basis, the assigned certifiers and design certifiers would be employed by the local authority. The costs would be recouped by the developer but the direct relationship between the certifier and local authority would be the primary one rather than that between the certifier and developer. Not only that, a certifier could not have any other function or role with the developer or in any other project simultaneously so there would be no conflict of interest or perceived conflict of interest.

We also felt very strongly that local authorities should not be the certifiers or employers of the certifiers for their own developments. In the same way that we wanted to break the link between the developer and certifier through BCAR, we also wanted some form of independent inspection of the local authority developments. That is in recognition of the fact that some of the most serious latent defects, although not often widely discussed, are in local authority builds rather than private sector builds. That is why we recommended that certification of local authority rebuilds should ultimately come from the new independent building standards and consumer protection agency rather than the local authority itself.

We also made a couple of proposals on increasing the capacity of local authorities to undertake their own independent inspections alongside BCAR inspectors. We felt there should be mandatory fire inspections of all multiple-unit developments of all types as opposed to a percentage of them. We were very strongly of the view that no building could be opened, used or occupied without a partial or completion certificate being issued, irrespective of the kind or size of the development.

With regard to latent defects, there has been an improvement in practice. There is more voluntary take-up of latent defects insurance by developers and banks but it should be made mandatory. It simply should not be possible to sell a property without adequate latent defects insurance attached to it in order to protect consumers. There needs to be legal change, which is not so much a matter for the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government but a matter that could be discussed with the relevant Ministers in terms of transferable warranties, shorter statutes of limitation and a bar on non-disclosure orders when homeowners negotiate a resolution, perhaps with a builder or seller, but would still like to comment on it publicly.

There needs to be a review of the sections and punishments for developers or builders who breach the regulations. Thankfully, while there have not been any significant breaches so far, we can already see there may be some coming down the line. The need for strong enforcement is crucial.

The next recommendation is very simple. A bar on the awarding of publicly funded construction project tenders should be introduced to prevent such contracts from being awarded to any builder or developer found in breach of building control regulations or standards.

A very simple measure would be a bar on the awarding of publicly funded construction projects for any builder or developer who has been found in breach of building control regulations or standards.

The final area of the recommendations was what to do with the legacy. Part of our difficulty is that we simply do not know the size of the problem in terms of Celtic tiger latent defects. We know some of the high profile projects in the public domain. Some of us know of others in our constituencies that have yet to be made public. However, we do know that there is a problem and that the people who bought those homes in good faith should not be left to their own devices to cover the cost of the defects. We have had pyrite mediation in some homes, although not all. I understand there has been progress under the mica remediation programme, which I welcome, but there has to be some mechanism for people, whether in Beacon South Quarter, Longboat Quay or developments throughout the country to secure assistance. The committee was deliberately non-prescriptive in that regard because we understand the matter is complex. The issue of who pays, eligibility criteria, etc. is not straightforward.

One of the things for which I call - it is a call that is not included in the report but which I believe most committee members would support - is that the Government announce a short public consultation process of about three months to enable stakeholders to express views on how we can have a proper latent defects legacy redress scheme. We could consider an industry levy, taxpayer funding, tax breaks or tax write-offs for homeowners to deal with safety concerns in their properties, but some mechanism must be put in place. For householders who may be facing costs of €9,000, €15,000, €20,000 or €40,000 - they are the kind of figure at which we are looking - we need some mechanism to secure redress for latent defects for which they are not responsible. While, in the first instance, bad developers should be forced to pick up the tab, this was possible because the regulatory regime pre-2014 was not robust enough, for which the State has to accept responsibility.

Last night, in advance of this debate, we invited any of the people who had contacted the committee, either through formal submissions or after the publication of the report, who had been affected by the issue of latent defects to come to a private meeting. We also invited members of the housing committee to attend. Some could and some could not come, but they were all made aware of it. We had abut 20 or 25 people in attendance from a range of developments. They were very complimentary of all the work committee members had done, as well as by other Deputies, including Deputy Catherine Martin of the Green Party for her tabling a similar motion at an earlier stage. What they want from us is not to allow the report to simply sit on shelves and gather dust. They want us to engage on a non-partisan, non-political, cross-party basis with the Minister and the Department to see what we can do to try to strengthen the changes introduced in 2014, introduce new levels of consumer protection to compliment the BICAR changes and also, crucially, put some latent defects redress scheme in place in order that at some point in the near future - preferably in and beyond budget 2019 - the people living in properties with significant safety defects through no fault of the purchasers will receive some support from the Government and the Oireachtas to tackle these issues.

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