Dáil to vote on improved building standards and regulations this week

19th June 2017

Green Party motion on Building Standards, Regulation and Homeowner Protection to be debated Wednesday

The Dáil will this week debate and vote on improved regulation of building standards and quality, the implementation of remedial scheme to assist homeowners to resolve serious structural and safety issues resulting from grossly defective building standards and also provide new legal rights and remedies to protect home buyers.

The Green Party motion on Building Standards, Regulation, and Homeowner Protection has three central aims:

1. Introduce a properly funded national building regulation office wherein a new independent Building Regulator will oversee national building control and regulate those involved in construction

2. Stop systematic failures in building control happening again by ensuring that building standards are raised and that there is appropriate building control compliance in this country including fully resourcing the new building regulator office with an effective and robust enforcement agency.

3. Improve legal remedies for homeowners who discover that there are serious latent defects in their homes, and introduce a consumer-friendly dispute resolution scheme for when this happens.

Green Party Deputy Leader and TD for Dublin Rathdown, Catherine Martin, said today: “There are tens of thousands of homes in this country affected by shoddy building work and failures in building control. We have seen this in a number of developments, where fire-proofing wasn’t completed properly, problems with water ingress, homes blighted by pyrite and by the risk of defective and sub-standard concrete blockwork, which may affect thousands of homes in Donegal and Mayo. We must do everything in our power to prevent this from happening to another generation of homeowners.”