Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I second the motion. I welcome the Minister. While we fundamentally support the need for a stricter building regime to make sure what occurred in Priory Hall never happens again, such a regime cannot be put in place if it means people will be unable to afford building a house on their own land. The broad brush approach used by this statutory instrument endeavours to treat large scale developments in the same way as one-off rural houses and that is wrong. Senator Mooney highlighted the position in County Leitrim but it is the same in every rural county where people want to live in their baile fearainn or townland. It is estimated that the new regulation, which the Minister signed into force on 1 March, will increase the self-build costs for individuals who want to build one-off houses by approximately 25%. Senator Mooney mentioned a sum of between €40,000 and €50,000. It is amusing that while the regulation applies to one-off houses, multi-unit developments and agriculture sheds, hospitals and schools may be exempt. Will the Minister address this? The words "may be" are used in the statutory instrument. Why is that the case?

A promise was made to carry out a regulatory impact analysis on this measure. Was that done? If not, why not?

Anyone wishing to carry out any building work from now on, with a number of exceptions, must by law employ an assigned professional - an engineer, architect or surveyor - to inspect the property on-site. An owner who intends to self-build and who contracts elements of the work to various parties must assume legal responsibility for ensuring the building or works concerned will comply with the requirements of the Second Schedule to the building regulations. The new regime will require an owner to assign a competent registered professional to certify the design prior to commencement and to inspect the works during construction.

The other issue is a person cannot build his or her own house because the person taking responsibility to sign off on the development must be a builder. For example, I supervised the building of my own house, as many people from rural farming backgrounds have done down through the generations, but I would be precluded from doing that now because the house would have to be signed off by a builder and an architect. That will result in difficulties and increased costs.

There are major anomalies in this regulation. We have several alternative proposals, which include a national register, a broader suite of measures, a national building inspectorate and a national register of inspections abd prosecutions. It must be ensured there is a score against the performance of anyone registered is a builder. If the regulation remains in place, ordinary people in rural Ireland will be faced with two scenarios: having to pay an additional cost to build their own house to employ the services of professionals or to take the easy option and live in a town or city. That will drive another nail into rural Ireland.