Results 5,841-5,860 of 9,814 for speaker:Steven Matthews

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: We are discussing the review of part B (fire safety) of building regulations. We are joined today by Mr. Dennis Keeley, chief fire officer and Ms Mary O'Brien, assistant chief fire officer, from the Dublin Fire Brigade. I thank them for giving their time to us today and their opening statements, which we received in advance. By way of background, the committee has met a couple of times...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: I am sorry but I must keep everyone to time because we only have a short meeting today. I call Deputy Higgins.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: I will give two minutes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: I wish to be clear on the role of the fire service in regards to a planning application for change of use. A paper-based planning application is received. As part of that process, the fire service reviews the application and makes its views known to the planners. Is that the process?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: The building control application process and the planning system are separate. Someone can have planning permission granted prior to the next step of building control approval and fire certification, but they are all needed before development can commence.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: At the construction or completion stage, is it the architect who signs off on the building's compliance with the drawings that were sent in and on which basis the fire certificate was granted?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: That is the BCAR system.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: I thank Ms O'Brien. I just wanted to clear that up. In his opening statement, Mr. Keeley stated that the building regulations were not prescriptive but performance based. What did that mean?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: That was a helpful explanation. The regulations are non-prescriptive, but the technical guidance documents set out how to achieve what is required by them.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: When examining modern methods of construction and so forth, a couple of groups appeared before us. I found the question of who it was up to to decide changes in regulations confusing. If the Minister were to say that he wanted to permit medium-or-high-rise buildings in cross-laminated timber, CLT, the National Building Control and Market Surveillance Office, NBCMSO, would have to formulate...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: That is great. I am following along so far. There was a conference in Avondale recently that Deputy Duffy and I attended. It was about building with timber, including CLT. It was the opening of the Avondale Coillte construction project. Clause 3.2.5.2 seemed to be referred to as inhibiting building higher than 10 m in timber construction. Does it need to be changed? What I gathered...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: I was just reading it. It applies to compartment floors, which I presume are timber floors in this instance, that require 60 minutes or more of resistance. It reads: "should be constructed of non-combustible materials". Is that compulsory? The word "should" is used, but is that just the way the clause was written at the time and it has travelled through each iteration of the guidance?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: That is one of the problematic clauses. Actually, perhaps it is not problematic. It may have suited its purposes at the time, but perhaps we have moved on since then and now need to address it. We have discussed the issue of two staircases, one staircase with sprinklers, etc. When carrying out a risk assessment, one considers the likelihoods and impacts. If we were to remove...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: We had architects in about two weeks ago who talked about the regulations in Germany and said we should transpose those regulations in the Irish regulations. What I gather from what Ms O'Brien has said is that it is the technical guidance we need to change. The regulations are okay because they are just there to make sure we have the safe functioning buildings, and it is the guidance on how...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: Fire escapes have been an issue, especially where there are terraced commercial buildings and fire escapes have to be put in at the rear. The witnesses have said there are pros and cons to external fire escapes. Is security one of the things that comes up there, in that there is external staircase access to second and third floors?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: That is very helpful. I thank the witnesses for that. I will let Deputy Gould in for the last slot.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Review of Part B (Fire Safety) of Building Regulations: Dublin Fire Brigade (23 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: We really do appreciate Ms O'Brien and Mr. Keeley taking the time out of their busy day to assist us. It is an area of work that the committee is concentrating on because we want to see these changes in construction methods in use. On behalf of the entire committee, I thank our guests and all members of the fire services, not just in Dublin but across the country, for the incredibly...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payments Fraud: Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (24 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: I thank Ms Davenport for her presentation. During the previous contributions, and after what Ms Davenport raised about the torch app, I deleted 20 apps from my phone. I have had the phone a couple of years and do not remember installing many of those apps. There are four or five pages of apps and I do not know what some of them do. I have deleted some of them.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payments Fraud: Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (24 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: We are only scraping the surface of the issue. As our guests said, the technology that fraudsters use moves at a fast rate. It is a highly technological area because there is obviously money to be made. We spoke earlier about the number of text messages involved. I think eFlow was mentioned. I recently received a message from the Revenue to tell me there was some cash waiting for me,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payments Fraud: Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (24 May 2023)

Steven Matthews: I cannot wait to engage with Revenue and get that money. I also won the Spanish lottery last year. Another person contacted me to ask could they put a couple of million in my bank account. Most of us are able to look at that sort of correspondence and think if it is too good to be true then it is. There are others ones, however. Revenue and eFlow are reputable organisations. I also have...