Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This question is for Ms Neary or Mr. Kelly, whoever is most appropriate. In terms of the explicit powers for the Minister to prevent a building from being used, it might be useful to articulate that to the committee in summary form. My second question concerns the following: "The amendments also provide a legal remedy for the uncommon situation whereby works have commenced or been completed on a building without submitting, by either act or omission, an appropriate valid notice to the building control authorities." Obviously, in some cases, this is like a building control retention where somebody has allowed a building to be occupied without a completion certificate to have a process. As the witnesses will know, because we corresponded on this particular case many years ago, there is a very high profile case in my constituency where this is a live matter right now. There are 48 apartments with no certification whatsoever and the local authority is trying to work a way out on that. How do we make sure where somebody has wilfully refused to engage with the building control section - it was not that they just forgot or that it was an accident but that they deliberately abused the system - that we do not give them a route to regularising something when in fact regularisation is not the solution and prosecution is. I know this is not the Department's intention but what I would hate to happen here is that we send out a signal. Larkfield House is a very good example. It has been fully occupied in flagrant breach of building control amendment regulations, BCAR, since 2018. No prosecution has taken place. That does not send a very strong signal to that section of the building industry, which I hope is small, that this system is really strong. I know it is not a matter for the witnesses. It is a matter for the planning authority and I am dealing with it separately. I would be a little nervous. I understand the logic of a regularisation procedure but how do we make sure that in doing that we do not invite more Larkfield Houses because planning retention is one thing?

In terms of building control retention, although I know that is not what the Department is calling this, how would we be really sure that, for example, fire stopping is adequately provided for? Will that require invasive inspections of random sections of the property? How do we make sure insulation, energy efficiency insulation, etc., has been installed properly? Again, will we allow for invasive inspections? It is fundamentally different from a retrospective grant or regularisation of a planning permission. I would be interested in the witnesses' thoughts in terms of not providing perverse incentive for people to break the rules and on how we retrospectively assess compliance, particularly with things such as fire safety and whatnot.