Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome to the Public Gallery a gentleman called Luke King who is a student in Pobalscoil Neasáin in Donaghmede. He is part of the Northside Partnership young community leaders group which has made a number of presentations recently to me and to the Lord Mayor on vaping, the reform of the leaving certificate and drug use in its community. He is here with the ambition hopefully to come back as a Deputy in future years. I hope that he enjoys the debate today.

As the Minister knows, the main purpose of the Construction Safety Licensing Bill 2023 is to modernise the system of safety certification for construction sites and quarrying by moving towards a licensing system. It streamlines the process to ensure that everyone in the quarry or on the construction site has safety training or the qualifications to be there. We will do this by providing a new and comprehensive framework for the licensing of certain construction, quarrying and related activities in Ireland. The Bill will establish a licensing authority, which we support, through the Minister's licensing modelling for the unified sector, replacing the current certificate approach across the two distinct sectors of construction and quarrying.

The practical effect of the Bill will be to strengthen the effectiveness and streamline the bureaucracy around safety certification. We support the Bill and look forward to making amendments as required during later Stages. It is welcome as a contribution to the improvement of the industry. However, this Bill is only a small start in a huge range of reforms we need in the construction industry. Thousands of residents, as previously mentioned by Deputy Mac Lochlainn, in my constituency have been affected by the construction defects scandals. People in my community have experience of rogue builders and rogue developers putting together apartment buildings such as Priory Hall. During housing debates, Government representatives accuse people in the Opposition of objecting to housing developments. However, it would be absolutely a dereliction of duty if political representatives in a particular geographic location like my own did not scrutinise every single planning application that came in front of them so that we do not have that kind of situation again.

I meet with residents groups, as was described already, who are living in defective apartment blocks with fire safety issues. They live in apartments that they feel could actually threaten their families. The double whammy is that they do not feel they can speak publicly about it because of the level of investment they have put into the property. That is a point worth making. More work needs to be done across government if the pyrite, mica and apartment defects scandals are to be avoided or minimised into the future. We need effective oversight of our building regulations in the way that banking regulation has been overhauled since the financial crash. This will have to involve many more staff in building control by the State than we have. We need boots on the ground, oversight and enforcement of regulations.

At the moment there are no consequences for defective buildings due to the Statute of Limitations, contract law, company law as well as planning, and public procurement. It is far too easy for a company to build something that is defective, go into liquidation, rebrand itself as something else and keep on going. Residents are effectively powerless in trying to pursue those responsible for the defective buildings in which they are forced to live. The Statute of Limitations must be amended such that people can sue after six years. The rights of homeowners vis-à-visproperty developers, contractors and subcontractors must be greatly strengthened. Company law must be changed to prevent builders using serial special purpose vehicle companies they can liquidate after each project to protect their interests. In addition, we must facilitate the corporate veil being lifted so the assets of directors can be got at.

This is a real, live issue in my community as people are living in apartment blocks built by people who must be held to account for what they have done. It has been described as a heartbreak to have invested in something in good faith and find oneself in this situation. These projects got planning permission. Those who purchased these apartments felt they were buying something that had got the say-so of the local authority and that the regulatory authorities were happy enough with. Why would you not hand over money to purchase such an apartment? People subsequently discovered to their horror there is a defect involved and again to their horror they discovered they have no recourse because the developer was just too cute.

If there is anything that has undermined the legitimacy of this Republic in the last 30 or so years, it is cute developers. I reiterate to the Minister of State that as we debate housing policy over and back, it is absolutely the responsibility of a fair-minded public representative to scrutinise any planning application going in to ensure what we have into the future is well-built housing for people and not a repeat of what public representatives like me have had to deal with, and continue to deal with. Again, it is a heartbreak because people do not have the vehicle of using media or speaking publicly because they are so worried about the reputational damage that will be caused to the apartment block in which they live. People want the defects to be sorted, but they do not feel they can speak publicly about it because of the investment they have made.

It is insane that non-compliance with the building regulations is not taken into account when local authorities are deciding on planning applications. The planning laws may need to be amended in this regard. If somebody flouts planning regulations, how can his or her commercial entity be allowed to submit planning applications again on the same level? It makes no sense the record of a company or a developer would not be taken into account. If we cannot trust them to do what they said they were going to in a previous instance, that must be taken into account as they reapply. In our view, it is simply immoral that dodgy builders can get lucrative public contracts, as many have. Again, we must look at public procurement processes to prevent this.

We welcome the Bill, but I would like the Minister of State to take into account many of the issues I have raised in the course of this. From the Labour Party point of view, I hope to improve the Bill as it goes through the House.

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