Opposition within the Irish construction industry to imported ideas for prefabricated housing is likely to mean that house purchasers who might prefer something different than standard-issue conventional houses will continue to encounter difficulties.
HomeBond, the Construction Industry Federation's guarantee scheme, does not accept certificates of fitness from other EU member states - even from Austria, which has much higher environmental and building construction standards than our own.
The stance taken by HomeBond is that new techniques or materials, such as the use of timber pre-fabrication, can only be shown to work by experience. The only other route would be via the Irish Agrement Board - and that could take up to two years.
Yet, it is evident that the Irish construction industry is over-stretched. Skills shortages are acute, particularly in "wet trades" such as bricklayers and plasterers, who are in such demand that they can now name their price, leaving the contractors no option but to pay up.
Shane O'Toole, architectural adviser to Tegral, said it is clear that the capacity of the building industry to meet the target of producing up to 50,000 new homes per year will provide an impetus to examine alternatives such as pre-fabrication, using timber and concrete.
The concrete industry is already looking at how pre-fabricated concrete units can be delivered, while Century Homes - the market leaders in timber-frame houses in Ireland - claims that their sector now accounts for at least 15 per cent of the industry's housing output.
HomeBond's scepticism is coloured by the experience of its counterpart in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, which went into liquidation after being snowed under by claims relating to the introduction there of a Californian system unsuited to the local climate.
Part D of the Irish Building Regulations states that all works to which they apply must be "carried out with proper materials and in a workmanlike manner". Proper materials are defined as being "fit for use", but do not seem to include timber prefabrication.
As for the fears that "pre-fab" housing implies lower standards, few could argue with any credibility that the design, technical specifications, insulation properties and general quality of conventional housing in Ireland are exceptionally high; in fact, it's quite the reverse.
One of the main advantages of timber pre-fabricated houses is that they can be produced indoors with much higher quality control and then erected very quickly on a site. That is what happens increasingly in Austria.
