Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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466. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his plans to set up a building regulations advisory authority to allow broader input from industry experts (details supplied) that wish to have input into the area of planning control; his views on whether this would be beneficial in improving an imperfect system. [33252/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I understand the body referred to in the Deputy's question is the Building Regulations Advisory Body (BRAB). Section 14 of the Building Control Act 1990 provides for the establishment, at the Minister's discretion, of a BRAB to advise the Minister on matters relating to building regulations.

The term of office of the last BRAB expired on 1 October 2012.  The members of that BRAB were appointed for a term of office of five years from 14 June 2007 to 13 June 2012.  A temporary extension to 1 October 2012 was granted to the existing members in light of the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations which were at an advanced stage of development at that time.

In accordance with Appendix IIb of the Government’s Public Service Reform Plan, published by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in November 2011, the BRAB was listed as one of the forty six “Candidate Bodies for Critical Review by end June 2012”.  The outcome of that review process was that the work of the BRAB was to be absorbed into my Department.

I have no plans to establish a new BRAB at this time.