I thank the Minister for his opening remarks. This is an entirely unacceptable way to introduce significant legislative changes to the Building Control Acts. Building control may not be a matter of huge media or public interest but it is absolutely essential to the well-being of people in their homes. We know that because we are currently dealing with the general scheme of the legislation to introduce a redress scheme for the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of homeowners and tenants impacted by building defects, a redress scheme that will cost the State a minimum of €2.5 billion over a decade, but probably much more. Yet, here we are in the final days of an Oireachtas term and a ten-page Bill - these are not amendments; this is stand-alone legislation - is being rammed through in the space, effectively, of an hour with no Oireachtas scrutiny whatsoever. There will not be any opportunity for our committee to engage with the Minister or his officials in public session. There will be no opportunity for our committee to listen to experts on the front line in the National Building Control Office or building control authorities, or indeed for us to undertake the necessary scrutiny of such important legislation. To thank us for our collaboration is gaslighting; let us be honest. Until last Thursday's Second Stage debate on the Bill, none of us had any notion that this was coming in, this side of Christmas. I accept it was in the legislative programme and pre-legislative scrutiny was done over at a year ago, but to throw this in in this way is entirely unacceptable. What has actually happened? The limited information we have is that the Government is acting under pressure from court decisions and imminent court proceedings. In order to fix a number of problems identified by building control officials this is being processed in the manner that it is. While the issue at hand is not the intention behind these changes and while there has always been a cross-party willingness across the Opposition and the Government to work together to strengthen our building control system in the decade that I have been in this House, this is not a smart way to proceed. We know this because we have been here before. We had a similar issue with a similar regularisation process, called substitute consent, a number of years ago where very significant legal challenges put pressure on the Government to put pressure on officials to introduce substantial legislation in a similar form to this and in a similar manner to this. Because of the way in which it was done, in the absence of scrutiny and the absence of time, the Government got the legislation wrong and amending legislation had to be brought forward the following December. I am hoping that will not be the case this time, but we just do not know because we have not been afforded the opportunity to do our job of scrutinising this process. I fully understand, from talking to building control officials, that much of what is in this Bill has either been requested by people on the front line or arises out of acknowledgement of weaknesses in the underlying legislation. I want to make clear that my criticisms are not in any way of the departmental officials who have been working on this legislation. This is a political charge against the Government for treating the Oireachtas housing committee and the wider Oireachtas with utter disrespect as regards our important role in scrutinising legislation. I am particularly concerned that there is a very real possibility that the regularisation process will be got wrong and it will allow a small but growing number of rogue developers, who are already in substantial non-compliance of planning and building control requirements, to further game the system to allow themselves to evade full compliance, while all the time making enormous profits by charging tenants exceptionally high rents. I say that because I have a lot of experience, both in my constituency and elsewhere, of such developments, including Larkfield House on Coldcut Road and Chianti Park in Brittas. As both developments are before the courts, I will not comment on them. They are both well-documented cases of well-known rogue developers in breach of planning and building control requirements, and then utilising the weakness of existing regularisation procedures in planning to stretch out their non-compliance for years in some cases, while all the time buildings are fully occupied with people paying rent of between €2,000 and €3,000 a month, much of which is subsidised by the State through the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme. Those rogue developers have a business model. That business model is to break all of our planning and building control rules, then fight it out through retention in planning permission and then fight it out in the courts, by which time the buildings are occupied and it becomes very difficult for a local authority, in the middle of a housing crisis, to have to force the evacuation of these buildings and the eviction of large numbers of families. That is the way these people operate. We have not had an adequate opportunity to assure ourselves that they will not be able to do the same with this process. I know that is not the intention of the departmental officials, and that is not a charge I am laying against them. I know they will have done everything they can to ensure this legislation is correct. However, the whole point of having committee scrutiny and having the opportunity to bring in third parties and people at the front line is to further scrutinise the legislation to make sure it is correct. I raised a concern in the briefing that we were not offered but had to request. I am very grateful to the officials for giving us their time today. I am particularly concerned with section 8(b)(4A) and the interaction of the requirement for authorised personnel from building control sections to inspect as part of the enforcement for the regularisation procedure. I am not against the idea in principle but I am concerned that those local authorities that take a more cautious and conservative approach to building control may actually interpret this section of the Bill in an unintended manner which would actually reduce the level of enforcement of building control. I urge the Minister to relook at that. I have been here too long to accept this way of doing business and I will not support this motion. That does not mean I do not support genuine attempts to improve building control but I will not be party to shoddily produced and rushed legislation. While I know he will not do it, I urge the Minister to withdraw the amendments and deal with them properly through committee. In the absence of that, I urge him to give us a commitment that the regulations arising from these amendments will be discussed in draft form with the committee so that we will have the opportunity to bring in third parties like the National Building Control Office and building control authorities to give their views on that to ensure we do not have a repeat of any of the kinds of defective developments that are currently taking place, not those pre-2014 but those post BCAR, because it is not working appropriately.

Sentiment score: 0.07