Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Sometimes you do not know when you take off where you will land. That is the case, I think, with most Members of this House, and that is meant with all due respect.

Deputy Gould is absolutely right about the preventative maintenance budgets of our local authorities. If we do not address that issue, we store up more trouble, ensuring that maintenance, building control and so on become bigger issues in the future. While those issues are not directly pertinent to the legislation before us, they are relevant in the overall scheme of things in the context of housing development, housing maintenance and so on.

The Labour Party gives, like previous speakers, a cautious welcome to this legislation. We know that the single biggest investment people make in their lives is the purchase of a home. Given the evidence from the mica scandal, the pyrite scandal and countless other scandals over the years, we know that building control has not been prioritised in this country, and that shames all of us. It seems there are more regulations supporting consumers buying basic, everyday products than there are regulations for citizens who wish to buy a home, who may then find themselves in difficult situations with little recourse in the form of recompense and so on when problems arise.

As I said, we cautiously welcome the Bill, but we believe it needs serious amendment. My colleague, Senator Moynihan, and I will make a number of proposals on Committee Stage and, I am sure, Report Stage to try to see the Bill evolve in the way in which I hope we all wish to see it evolve. Our view is that it is imperfect legislation. It is a large Bill. I am taken by Deputy Ó Broin's earlier remark that, to paraphrase him, even a defective statutory framework is worth more than a voluntary one. At present we have in place a voluntary system operated by the Construction Industry Federation. We in the Labour Party will compose a good deal of amendments genuinely designed to be constructive and to help to make this work in everyone's interest. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get things right and learn from the mistakes of the past. I accept the Minister's bona fides in trying to address some of the appalling, horrific deficiencies that have cost people so much financially and in emotional heartache and distress over the years because of problems to do with defective properties, be it the mica scandal or the issues on which the Construction Defects Alliance works. We are all aware of those problems. We deal with them here far too frequently.

The Construction Industry Federation has the voluntary register, which it is now proposed to put on a statutory footing, supported by this legislation. The legislation will allow the Government to appoint a body to act as a registration body to regulate providers of building works, to allow the registration body to establish standards, competences and so on, which the Minister went into in some detail earlier, and to provide for complaints that may be made against providers. The Bill also provides a framework within which those complaints will be managed, adjudicated and so on. The Minister anticipates that, ultimately, about 5,000 individuals, companies and so on will register to be part of this registration process, and that is very welcome. We know that this is part of a wider framework contained in the Housing for All document to improve building control and the housing situation more generally. We all accept that there is an absolute requirement for stronger regulation because of the revelations and issues we deal with in our constituencies and nationally from day to day.

We in the Labour Party wish to draw the Minister's attention to what we see as a series of deficiencies in the legislation. It seems to us that there will be no obligation placed on a developer, for example, to use the services of a registered builder. It will be up to the developer whether to do that. That may have implications for the developer in time, but there does not seem to be any requirement or obligation laid out in the legislation for anybody to use registered builders. That is particularly problematic when it comes to local authorities. The Minister says he wants compliance and wants to drive better standards, but it seems that elements of this legislation are quite toothless. There is a risk of big developers using builders who are not registered and who therefore, in theory, may not have the required competence and qualifications. Significantly, if developers do not engage registered builders but decide to continue to use the services of those who may not be on the register, that has implications for competition. We have seen time and again that the minority of bad builders and poor operators in the sector are not compliant with even the sectoral employment order system set down for the construction sector to guarantee basic legal minimum standards of pay and terms and conditions. That then allows them to lowball and organise the lowest tenders for significant construction projects, undercutting good operators in the system. That is a compliance issue. The lessons should be learned as to how the sectoral employment order system operates and how the Minister can apply that to his wish to have a greater culture of compliance and higher standards in the construction sector.

Similarly, it seems to us in the Labour Party that consumers should be enabled to go after the developer where there are deficiencies in that regard. Where a developer fails to engage providers of building works who are on the register, there should be implications for the developer. The Minister might explain his position on that. I may be misreading this, and I hope I am not misrepresenting the legislation, but it seems to us that there is a lacuna in that regard because those who hold the purse strings, those who engage the contractors, have a very significant role to play in driving best practice.

I note the concerns Deputy Ó Broin expressed about the Construction Industry Federation managing this regulatory framework, the construction industry register, when it is put on a statutory footing. I have similar concerns. That said, the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, for example, very successfully manages a registration system on a statutory basis. It is responsible for that, and it seems that some inspiration may have been drawn from that system and applied to this one. The function, role and position of architects in our society and economy, and in the construction industry more generally, involve registration of title. There is no such thing in law, though, as a building contractor. That said, the Minister seems to be quite enthusiastic, thankfully, about driving up standards and competency in the sector. That is provided for in the legislation in the form of a requirement for continuous professional development, CPD, and related matters.

I turn now to the question of the complaints procedure, which is provided for in Part 6, section 44. The person - it seems to be anyone, in our interpretation - may make a complaint to the registrar that the building provider, inter alia, is providing works while not registered or has not complied with conditions of registration, codes of practice, CPD or other requirements.

The registrar, as I understand it, refers the complaint generally to the board of investigation, unless it falls into a variety of exceptions, including that he or she thinks the issues can be resolved informally by mediation. The board then investigates and provides reports and other interventions.

What the legislation does not provide for specifically, is allowing consumers to take action directly against those building providers when they have been negatively affected by their works, the failure register or the failure to comply with registration requirements, and so on. That is a gap in the legislation. A gap also presents itself in the context of the sanctions that are available under this legislation. The sanctions that are available to the board range from "advice" or "a reprimand" to "the removal of the registered person from the register". That will be of small comfort to those whose house or apartment is falling down, is defective and they are financially hit in terms of the improvements that need to be made to the home, and if that is as a consequence of the developer engaging someone that he or she knows is not on the register. That is a real problem. The question of redress and related matters needs to be more substantially reflected in this legislation if it is to work and if the public are to have confidence in it.

I want to move on to the question of privilege. All complaints made to the board, investigations and reports by the board are absolutely privileged. That is an issue. It is of course worth being careful about how we proceed, and we want this to work, but I think the argument could be made that if someone has a series of complaints made against them and they are a serial offender, as it were, that should not be subject to absolute privilege, particularly if the stated objective of this legislation - as it is - is to protect consumers and regulate the industry. The public has a right to know who the rogue builders are and what sanctions have been taken against them. There should be an absolute entitlement to that. We have had too many problems in this country with rogue developers impacting on the lives of far too many people. I am not talking here about frivolous complaints or relatively minor complaints that may be managed in the future by the board. The Minister of State will appreciate and understand where I am coming from. This needs to be transparent if it is to be effective. The default position needs to be that information that is important is provided to the public, to allow the public to ensure that they are fully briefed on operators in the industry when they are making very significant investments in their own lives. As I said at the outset, the investment that a person will make in his or her home or apartment is probably the most significant investment that he or she will make in his or her life. People are entitled to the full protection of the State.

We know that the Building Control Act has had very few successful cases from the consumer perspective. There is a range of different problems across the sector. This legislation could work really well. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get it right. I look forward to engaging with the Minister of State and his colleagues in more detail as does my colleague, Senator Moynihan, to try to get this legislation right. It is that once-in-a-generation opportunity. It is very timely. In fact, it is beyond time that we introduced comprehensive legislation to protect the rights of consumers in this context.

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