Law to control rogue architects delayed a year

Legislation aimed at clamping down on rogue architects will not be introduced until 2006, the Department of the Environment has said.

Commenting amid heightened concern about confidence tricksters operating in the State, a spokesman for the department said the Building Control Bill, establishing a register of qualified architects, would be published "some time next year".

Tony Reddy, president of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), criticised the delay, saying: "We were promised this legislation in 2002. It was due to be published this summer, then autumn. Now it's worse still. And all the time the public is unprotected."

He said the institute was concerned about an increasing number of con artists operating in the sector, noting that more than 80 per cent of complaints made to the professional body were about unqualified business people posing as architects.

The institute was taking legal action against Dublin property consultant David Grant for alleged breach of RIAI copyright, he added.

An RTÉ Prime Time documentary this week estimated that Mr Grant had earned more than €2 million in planning application and architectural fees despite the fact that he had a planning application refusal rate three times higher than any other applicant in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and Dublin City Council.

David O'Connor, director of planning at Fingal County Council, told Prime Time Mr Grant had made 132 planning applications to the local authority since 2001. Yet the council could find no record of any planning officer having met Mr Grant.

Mr O'Connor said the council had refused 67 per cent of Mr Grant's valid applications. "That's a very high rate of refusal by any standard. It's a bizarre scenario that there is no provision in legislation that allows us to address this," said Mr O'Connor.

Mr Reddy said registration had been in place in the US since the 1890s and in the UK since 1930.

"We are now one of the few countries in the developed world without registration. The real risk, apart from the economic loss to clients, is the fact that the buildings don't comply with the regulations. There is a real threat we will have another Stardust, or another major disaster, because people don't know what they are at."

Attempts by The Irish Times to contact Mr Grant for comment proved unsuccessful.