John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to raise some issues regarding the Bill. Previous speakers touched on most of the major issues. I agree with what Senator Leyden said in his opening remarks, that this issue has been long-fingered in recent years, which is a pity in light of the scale of construction that has taken place in the past ten years. I refer in particular to the grading of insulation for new developments. Perhaps the Minister can confirm or deny a statistic I read recently, namely, that somewhere between a quarter and a third of all housing units in the country have been built in the past seven or eight years. If it is correct, that is an astonishingly high figure. We should have gone down this route a number of years ago.

I share Senator Leyden's reservations about some aspects of the Bill but, on the whole, I welcome it. He objected to his inclusion in the so-called grandfather category of architects. I will not refer to him as that.