Colm Burke (Fine Gael)

I have heard some of the debate on the radio about the Priory Hall incident. I am surprised at the lack of information. It is not just about the builders being responsible; other people, including engineers, signed off on payments. Planning regulations apply to every property sold and an engineer must sign a certificate of compliance with planning and building regulations. For the certificate to be acceptable, the engineer must have insurance. To suggest that unqualified people were signing off on these certificates is incorrect. The sad aspect of this is that, where a person is buying a house in a building estate, the person is entitled to send in an engineer at various stages before payments are certified. We abolished the staged payments system, which has not necessarily worked to the purchaser's advantage. With apartments, we do not have the same facility for the purchasers' engineers to inspect the work as it is being done. Perhaps the Minister should revisit the matter of how new complexes are being built so that purchasers' engineers can inspect the building as it is being built, in the same way as applies to housing.