James Bannon (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister to the House to discuss this important Bill. I have spoken on many occasions in the House and lamented the delay in bringing legislation before it. This Bill is especially long overdue given the statement by the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, RIAI, that it represents the culmination of a campaign that has lasted 119 years since it first sought in 1886 to have registration for Irish architects. In both its emphasis on the registration of architects and its broader implications, I welcome and, in principle, support the Bill. However, there are areas where questions must be asked, answers must be forthcoming and some amendments must be made.

The Bill establishes a register for architects, building surveyors and quantity surveyors, strengthens enforcement of existing building control law, allows for the energy rating of buildings, and legislates for the disability requirements for commercial buildings and apartment blocks. Fine Gael fully supports these aims, many of which are long overdue. We particularly welcome proposals to make regulation of professional qualifications watertight, with special provision being made for the so-called grandfather category.

The first Part of the Bill changes the procedures set out in the Building Control Act 1990 with regard to the fire safety certification and disability access certification of buildings. It was apt that this Bill was put before the Dáil on the anniversary of the Stardust tragedy, the like of which we must never see again. Under this legislation, new buildings, extensions and buildings which undergo major alteration, including a change of use, must have a fire safety certificate and disability access certificate. If a building is found to be without these certificates, the enforcement authorities can require steps to be taken to ensure the requirements are met. It can also require that the building be removed or work on it stopped, or it may prohibit the use of the building.

The disability access certificate is a confirmation by an approved building professional that the designs of new non-domestic buildings and apartment blocks comply with Part M of the building regulations which deals with access for people with disabilities. The Bill increases the fines associated with violations of the building regulations. In addition, it is hoped the enforcement powers of the building control authorities will be strengthened under the Bill. They will be empowered to initiate proceedings for offences under the building code by way of summary prosecution in the District Court rather than through prosecution by the Director of Public Prosecutions in the Circuit Court.

The National Disability Authority, NDA, has produced several documents on the accessibility of buildings to disabled people. In a submission to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government on the review of Part M of the building regulations, it recommended, among other provisions, that the definition of disability used in Part M should reference the Disability Act 2005 and should include people with a range of impairments including, among others, people with hearing, speech, vision, mental health, intellectual or physical impairments, including those impairments that limit mobility, arm movement and hand movement.

The NDA also recommended that significant enhancements be made to the current technical guidance document to increase the accessibility of buildings. It also advised that technical guidance standards for non-residential buildings in the key problem areas should be raised to the best international standards and that the standards set out in Part M should be reflected in other parts of the building regulations.

The Irish Wheelchair Association and the Disability Federation of Ireland proposed that the Bill be amended to increase the sanctions for breaching the building regulations and to ensure that the non-compliant pay the cost to the enforcement authorities of the investigation and prosecution of the breach in regulations. They also recommended that a published consultation process take place before work commences on any construction in all major public developments and that the regulations on disability access and use of a building should be the same in this Bill as in the current building regulations. They further advised that an access statement should form part of the planning application. Fine Gael brought forward amendments in the Dáil that would have covered many of these recommendations. However, they were considered in the main unnecessary and were rejected by the Government. I will raise these issues again on Committee Stage.

The Bill provides for the legal transposition of certain provisions of the EU directive of 16 December 2002 on the energy performance of buildings, including the phasing in over the period 2007 to 2009 of a building rating certification process for all newly constructed dwellings. Poor insulation and energy standards in the past eight years have resulted in the construction of substandard houses and, as I said on another occasion in this House, could leave the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, and the State, open to charges and the State exposed to claims for compensation. Whether the owners of the 250,000 supposedly substandard houses constructed on this Government's watch choose to take legal action is entirely their call, but the prospect hangs over the Government's head.

In the light of such deficiencies, there are a number of other measures I would have liked the Bill to contain. There is no reference to sound insulation. One of the miseries of modern life is the ability to hear one's neighbour's life happening moment by moment, even though one is separated by a party wall. There is no reference to public buildings taking the lead on alternative energy and being fitted for geothermal or solar energy technology. Insulation and the issue of cavity blocks are ignored. Senator O'Toole raised that issue in a Private Members' motion some time ago and we had an excellent debate on it in the House.

Other sections of the Bill refer to the proposed registering of building professionals: architects and building and quantity surveyors. The registering of those professionals should mean that the public is protected from unqualified professionals. Those professions will move from self-regulation to State regulation. In the case of architects, the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, RIAI, will be the registration body and, in the case of quantity and building surveyors, it will be the Society of Chartered Surveyors.

As these are professional bodies which represent the professionals involved, there could be concerns about the impartiality of the organisations in becoming registration bodies. Such concerns have been voiced with regard to other professional bodies with a regulatory role such as the Medical Council and the Law Society. Their members may try to use the registration requirement to limit registration or the body itself may try to force non-members to become members against their will in order to register.

When enacting and protecting any professional occupation, the concerns of consumers as well as competition concerns must be taken into account. Consumers must be protected from unscrupulous practitioners, but not at the expense of restricting competition in the sector. The Competition Authority recommended that the registration body be independent of the representative bodies to allay competition concerns. The Bill in its current form does not do that.

Of particular concern to me is the so-called grandfather category of architects who are without formal qualification but who have been practising in excess of ten years. When exemptions are sought for this group, as I intend to do, we must not lose sight of the influence of many of our most prominent architects who are responsible for changing the face of our built environment, such as Michael Scott and Sam Stephenson, both of whom could be said to have had mixed training.

I have received representations from the Group of Independent Architects in Ireland, GIAI, which, with the Architects and Surveyors Institute, the Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors and the Irish Architects Society, has contributed to a document entitled A Framework for Registration of the Architectural Profession in Ireland, the framework document. That document indicated that, in any new regime or in the event of the regulation of the profession, a grandfather approach would have to be taken to persons who were practising as architects without having formally qualified as such. The document also outlined the method of assessment to be applied to persons falling within the grandfather category which would enable them to register as an architect based on training acquired by practical means while also acknowledging their established right to practise without formal qualifications.

However, at variance with the approach proposed in the framework document, the RIAI, the proposed designated registration body under the Building Control Bill 2005, is determined to impose a technical assessment based on recognition of prior learning, RPL. The Competition Authority's report states that the RIAI will face a clear potential conflict of interest between representing the interest of its members on the one hand and regulating in the public interest on the other.

RPL requires a candidate to demonstrate an achievement of learning outcomes and is not based on experience per se. It is entirely inappropriate, therefore, and against the spirit of the framework document that such an approach should be used to assess those I described who fall within the grandfather clause. The GIAI has serious reservations about this assessment system being used for the purpose of assessing so-called grandfathers under technical assessment. This grandfather group is de facto a mature group, currently in practice, with the majority running their own practice with employees, and the assessment process should reflect this group's status as a finite grandfather group.

In addition, the GIAI submits that the application of this assessment system is entirely inappropriate on the grounds that it is neither equitable nor consistent with the assessment procedures adopted by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government when previously assessing those persons who are now on what is known as the Minister's list and which category of person is referred to in section 12(2)(d).

The GIAI fully supports the aim of this Bill to introduce a system of registration for architects and for the elimination of rogue architects, but while its members do not have a formal architectural qualification, they have gained many years' expertise through practical learning. This Bill fails to prescribe the method of assessment to be used for those seeking registration. It gives the new registration body a free hand to choose any method of assessment it wishes.

What is of major concern to the GIAI and to me is the fact that the mechanism for the assessment of existing architects as proposed under the Building Control Bill would, by its inherent flexibility, permit a departure from the approach envisaged in the framework document in recognising a grandfather group. This occurs because of the failure of the Bill to prescribe the actual method of assessment to be used. The grandfather group has the qualifications and I believe their concerns, and those of the GIAI, are reasonable. I will press this issue further on Committee Stage.