Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

-----but with respect, I have already stated that this is a matter primarily for local authorities. Some of them will not be in a position to have the necessary staff to deal with this work themselves but if they have the staff, this is the way they should go. This is erring on the side of allowing local authorities to be in charge of the scheme with EPA guidelines. This is what they do in the planning process. I want to see this extended to this issue where fewer than 20% of the people will be inspected.

As regards allowing private inspectors onto premises this only applies to a small number of people in the Dog Breeding Establishments Act. At present, a property cannot be sold or rented without a BER certificate There are approximately 250,000 to 300,000 rental properties in the country so this flies in the face of what the Senator has stated. The principal position he has taken is that the Dog Breeding Establishments Act is small beer. Already, under the rental properties scheme, private inspectors are inspecting houses and dwellings before being sold or rented under the BER scheme. They are able to cope with the amount of work involved when dealing with such large numbers in the same way as they will be able to cope with this. I regard local authority staff as being the people who will do 90% of this work and nobody should have anything to fear.

In answer to Senator Ó Clochartaigh's question about planning, I will repeat that all we want to find out is whether a septic tank, no matter when it was installed or by whom, is working. It does not matter under which planning conditions the tank may have been installed, for instance, in 1967, 1975 or 2011.