Official Report: Minutes of Evidence
Committee for Finance, meeting on Wednesday, 25 November 2020
Members present for all or part of the proceedings:
Dr Steve Aiken OBE (Chairperson)
Mr Paul Frew (Deputy Chairperson)
Mr Pat Catney
Miss Jemma Dolan
Mr Philip McGuigan
Mr Maolíosa McHugh
Mr Matthew O'Toole
Mr Jim Wells
Witnesses:
Mr Michael Graham, Chief Fire and Rescue Officer
Mr Paddy Gallagher, Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service
Mr Geoff Somerville, Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service
Building Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2012: Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service
The Chairperson (Dr Aiken): We welcome Michael Graham, Paddy Gallagher and Geoff Somerville from the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS). Michael, are you happy to make an opening statement?
Mr Michael Graham (Chief Fire and Rescue Officer): Thank you very much for the invitation to talk to the Committee on the consultation return of the proposed amendments to the Building Regulations (Northern Ireland0m 2012. I apologise for our not being with you in person.
I am the current Chief Fire and Rescue Officer (CFRO) for the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service. I have been in the post for around 18 months. I am joined by Assistant Chief Fire and Rescue Officer (ACFRO) Paddy Gallagher, who is responsible for our service delivery directorate, and Group Commander (GC) Geoff Somerville, who is the lead officer for the area of work that we are discussing, and who made the return on our behalf.
I will give the Committee an overview of where the work fits into our overall purpose of helping to make Northern Ireland a safer place. There are four key areas to our service delivery, the first of which is response. People will be most familiar with that, where firefighters turn out in fire appliances and deal with fires and other incidents. Secondly, our resilience department works with other agencies around emergency planning and specialist response to events such as flooding and wildfires. Thirdly, in our prevention work, we engage with members of the public to reduce the risk of fire, mostly in their home, through such activities as home fire-safety checks. The final part of the four-piece jigsaw is protection work, which we are discussing and focusing on today. It focuses on fire safety in the built environment. It is important to say that they are equally important when it comes to keeping people safe. It is ACFRO Gallagher's responsibility to move those pieces to ensure the safety of our community and our firefighters.
Once a building is completed and defined as a relevant premises in Northern Ireland, we become the enforcing authority for fire-safety measures that are required by the Fire and Rescue Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 and the Fire Safety Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2010. It might be obvious to say, but our firefighters and officers rely on robust building regulations to ensure that buildings are designed and built to be safe in the event of a fire. That protects not only users of buildings but our people when they are required to enter buildings to fight fires and carry out rescues. As you will imagine, it is really difficult for officers at the scene of a fire to develop and implement an effective operational plan and, ultimately, save people's lives if we cannot reasonably predict the behaviour of the fire within the built environment. As an experienced fire officer, I watched, as many did, the events at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017 unfold. The resultant tragic deaths of 72 people will hopefully forever be a reminder to us all of what the outcome can be when fire safety is not regulated and applied in an effective way. We as a service welcomed the recommendations that were made by Dame Judith Hackitt following the Grenfell inquiry and the 'Building a Safer Future' report and will welcome any future recommendations that may follow from subsequent phases of the Grenfell Tower inquiry. We believe that the recommendations will assist us in improving our service to the public and hopefully improve building safety going forward.
Two of our protection officers, one of whom is GC Somerville, sit as members of the fire safety subcommittee of the Northern Ireland Building Regulations Advisory Committee (NIBRAC). They have considered and provided input to the chair of the committee on proposed building regulation amendments in advance of the public consultation. Our consultation return is based, unashamedly, on our desire to enhance public and firefighter safety. We have not commented on the wider considerations, such as the costs of additional measures or the capability of industry to be able to deliver any of the enhancements that we have suggested or that have been suggested. We recognise that all our views may not be adopted when other areas are considered through the appropriate impact assessments, but, as you would expect, we have focused on achieving a high level of safety in buildings that are built across Northern Ireland in future.
GC Somerville is sitting with me. If it is helpful, before we invite questions, he will take you through our primary and focused response to the consultation.
Mr Graham: OK. I will hand over to Geoff.
Mr Geoff Somerville (Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service): Many thanks. I will go through these in the order in which questions were presented in the consultation return. I will provide a short summary of the key elements of that return. Part A of the Building Regulations 2012 is titled "Interpretation and general". The NIFRS supports the proposal to require a building that becomes a relevant building owing to material change of use to be subject to the requirements of the new regulation 23(2).
Of course, you know that that regulation will require a classification of non-combustible or limited combustibility for the external cladding of a building, and we support that.
Part B is titled "Materials and workmanship". The NIFRS welcomes the proposal to enhance public safety in relevant buildings by specifying which materials used in the construction of an external wall should be non-combustible. On question B2, the proposed definition of "relevant buildings" includes dwellings, flats, hospitals, old people's homes, residential care premises for children or the elderly, boarding schools and student accommodation. The NIFRS, however, wishes to see that proposed definition extended to include hotels, hostels and boarding houses, because people are at the greatest risk from fire when they are asleep. In addition, on question B3, the NIFRS would support a lower height threshold for the ban in a relevant building to be at a lower height of 11 metres rather than the 18 metres proposed, because, in the NIFRS's opinion, 11 metres is the upper limit of traditional external firefighting techniques. Over that height, in high-reach apartments —.
The Chairperson (Dr Aiken): Sorry, Geoff. Does that mean the height of the ladder, or is that the height of the hose extension? What does that mean specifically?
Mr Somerville: Eleven metres is the effective height to which we can operate a firefighting jet. In addition, we carry portable ladders on our appliances that will allow us to work from the head of a ladder to be able to extinguish a fire, and that is effective up to about 11 metres. Over that height, between 11 metres and 18 metres, we rely on a high-reach appliance to be able to extinguish a fire on the outside of a building, but that depends very much on access, which you will know is very limited in most buildings. Building regulations require only a small percentage of the external part of a building to permit high-reach appliance access.
The Chairperson (Dr Aiken): To go back, when you talk about "relevant buildings", you are talking about residential buildings. For my education, why are hotels not part of that definition already?
Mr Somerville: The definition that Northern Ireland is proposing mirrors what has been adopted by the Grenfell inquiry, as well as mirroring what has happened in England. Hotels, hostels and boarding houses are currently excluded because there is a higher level of fire-safety management in those premises. They would be considered relevant premises and therefore would have fire alarm systems and managers on the premises to tell people what to do in the event of a fire, and that is the reason that they have been excluded in England and are proposed to be for Northern Ireland, I believe.
Mr Somerville: The NIFRS would support the ban on combustible materials being extended to specified attachments. It supports an exemption list being provided for some components of the external wall system and has provided comments on the items listed. The NIFRS agrees that a metal composite panel with a polyethylene core of 30% or more should be banned from being used in external wall construction of any building, regardless of height or purpose.
Part C of the 2012 regulations is titled "Site preparation and resistance to contaminants and moisture". The NIFRS has no views on those matters, because they are outside its remit. Part E is on technical booklet E and is titled "Fire safety". The NIFRS agrees with the proposal in section 5 of the consultation version of technical booklet E for relevant buildings. It agrees with the use of only European classifications, which will make technical booklet E easier to understand. The NIFRS agrees with the new text proposed for paragraph 5.4 of the booklet, which states that cladding and specified materials in all buildings over 18 metres must be of limited combustibility. The clarity provided by that new text is exactly what designers and regulators require when considering proposals for new buildings.
The NIFRS would question the content of the proposed paragraph 5.4A, which states that consideration should be given to the prevention of external fire spread. New table 5.1A, however, states that "No provisions" or "no minimum performance" are specified for certain types of building. The NIFRS or any other regulator will therefore not be able to assess whether paragraph 5.4A has been met in buildings in which there are "No provisions" or "no minimum performance" criteria. It would be helpful to remove any ambiguity so that a designer or regulator, by comparing proposals against specific criteria, is able to determine whether paragraph 5.4A has been met. Without specific criteria, it will not be possible for a designer or regulator to determine whether the design proposal is or is not acceptable. The NIFRS suggests that further consideration be given to that matter.
That concludes a summary of the technical aspects of our consultation return. I will hand back to our Chief Fire and Rescue Officer unless you have any questions.
The Chairperson (Dr Aiken): I have a few before I open the meeting up for questions from the rest of the Committee.
Do we have a rough idea of how many buildings there are in Northern Ireland higher than 18 metres that come within the classification?
Mr Somerville: We estimate that 147 buildings fall into the classification. That is a relatively small number, and the impact assessment done by the Department of Finance estimates that an additional three buildings a year will fall into that classification.
The Chairperson (Dr Aiken): This is a slightly technical question, but does "limited combustibility" mean that materials have to be fire-resistant for a particular length of time or is it based on the materials from which the cladding is manufactured?
Mr Somerville: Each of those materials must now be classified, subject to this going ahead, to European classification A2-s1, d0 or to class A1. Those are technical tests carried out under British and European standards. An A2-s1, d0 or an A2 will not significantly contribute to the fire load, so it could be described as limited combustibility. They will not contribute to a fire. They will produce weak smoke or no smoke at all, and no flaming droplets or particles, so it is a very safe product when used on the outside of a building. In addition, the A1 classification will not contribute to any stage of a fire, including a fully developed fire, or present a smoke hazard. They are two of the highest standards for building safety.
Mr Wells: Thank you for a clear explanation, written and oral, which is much appreciated. It was jargon-free as well, which was great.
Would it be normal for Northern Ireland to step out of line with regulations that pertain to the rest of the United Kingdom? In other words, do we have the power to go a bit further and make our legislation on those products even tighter?
Mr Somerville: That question is a matter for the Department of Finance. Northern Ireland can, of course, step outside and decide which building regulations it wishes to introduce, and there is no requirement to follow blindly what has happened in other jurisdictions. It is certainly within the ambit of Northern Ireland to do what it thinks is right for public safety.
Mr Wells: Following on from what the Chair said, I think that we were all surprised when you said that hotels and hostels were not within the ambit of the definition. You explained that by saying that the internal arrangements for fire prevention in those buildings are already of a higher standard. That is the internal layout, however. It does not mean that the actual fabric of the building is any less or more likely to become a fire hazard. Is that not an obvious omission in the regulations? It calls into question the efficacy of those who drew them up.
Mr Somerville: No. It is important to note that the NIFRS's opinion is that those buildings should be included. I know that England has gone to a further consultation to consider including those buildings as well. It is therefore a topic that is under further scrutiny in both England and Wales, and it is, of course, being considered in the consultation proposal for Northern Ireland.
Mr Wells: We were all absolutely horrified by what we saw at Grenfell Tower. They were absolutely dreadful scenes. I presume that the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service has a fair idea of any buildings in the Province where that might be an issue.
Mr Somerville: We certainly do. We have engaged with the owners of all buildings across Northern Ireland. We do that regularly. We have not identified any residential buildings in Northern Ireland of the type that could be compared to Grenfell Tower. For any buildings that we visit, we provide a detailed range of advice, where we can under our legislative remit. We work with the managers of buildings to make them as safe as possible. Thankfully, the risk profile in Northern Ireland is significantly different from what has appeared in England and Wales.
Mr Wells: That is very good news. One of the points that came out of the Grenfell Tower inquiry, however, was that materials had been identified by the manufacturers as being a risk to human health and safety but that that had been ignored. It could be that a similar process has been undertaken for materials in Northern Ireland. How confident can we be about the tests that have been carried out on materials used here?
Mr Somerville: It is really important to note that the future proposal for Northern Ireland is that a building safety programme group that has been set up will sit independently to look at building safety and risk in Northern Ireland. It is a key recommendation of the NIFRS that the group should consider that risk profile in Northern Ireland, look for other buildings and, where necessary, identify what the risk is so that the owners of those buildings can be advised accordingly. That definitely is a proposal for Northern Ireland. The NIFRS very much supports that.
Mr Wells: The reason that I ask that is because, in Dundrum in my constituency, there was a fire on the cladding of former Housing Executive houses. Although thankfully, there were no fatalities or injuries, the fire did spread very quickly from house to house along the cladding. They were only two-storey houses. That fire raised the question of whether there are products in the Province that, although not the same as those that were used on Grenfell Tower, could, in fact, be dangerous. I remember writing to the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service and the Health and Safety Executive Northern Ireland (HSENI) at the time to ask whether they were absolutely certain that everything was safe. The view was that, yes, it was OK. The fire was at the Church Avenue development in Dundrum. It was quite obvious to me that the fire spread along the outside cladding on the first floor. I am therefore slightly worried that you are saying that you are convinced that there is nothing that is of a similar danger to Grenfell here. Are you saying that there is nothing to worry about here for high-rise buildings only, as opposed to ordinary housing?
Mr Somerville: Yes. It has to be made very clear that the buildings that I am talking about are those that are proposed under the new definition of "relevant buildings", which are buildings over 18 metres in height. The owners of buildings that are under 18 metres high are required through building regulations to consider external fire spread. As I mentioned in my previous technical return, however, there are no provisions on the requirements for combustibility for buildings that are under 18 metres high, such as those that you have described.
Mr Wells: In other words, you are saying, "You are safe if your house is over 18 metres high, but be very worried if it is under that height". Surely that definition should apply to all buildings, no matter what height they are. That fire occurred at night. The only thing that saved the situation is that one of the residents happened to be up at 2.00 am or 3.00 am, spotted the fire and was able to alert his neighbours. Surely the same principle should apply to any building regardless of its height.
Mr Somerville: It is very important to bear in mind the reason the buildings are built in the certain way in which they are. The means of escape and getting people out in the event of fire is what is most important.
That is why there are key thresholds in building regulations at 11 metres and 18 metres. Beneath those heights, it is about getting people out and making sure that they are safe. As occurred in the fire in Dundrum, all the people did get safely out of the building, because it was a low-rise building and there is a much higher degree of safety when you are close to the ground and able to evacuate easily. So that is just one of those facts; that is how building regulations are written and what they aim to achieve.
Mr Wells: They only got out of the building because the gentleman got up and banged the doors of five other properties and got the people out. They were asleep at the time, and the fire spread very rapidly through the cladding on the first floor. Would it be very problematic to make the same rules that apply to high-rise flats, hostels and hotels apply to domestic dwellings?
Mr Somerville: The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service would love to see all buildings being made completely non-combustible. However, on the practical side of things, that is simply not possible, and it is a matter for a cost versus benefit analysis for the building industry on what those proposals would require. The impact assessment might find that the cost is prohibitively expensive. Of course, the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service's key focus is on providing effective prevention advice, and that is one of our key work streams for all buildings that fall below the 18-metre threshold. Our firefighters tirelessly carry out home fire safety checks, and we visit premises right across Northern Ireland to provide prevention advice. A lot of fire safety is about what people do in the event of a fire and knowing what needs to be done when a fire happens and how to take the right action. We very much rely on prevention when looking at the other buildings that are below 18 metres in height.
The Chairperson (Dr Aiken): Thanks. Just before I bring in the next person, that raises an interesting question. You will be well aware of what is happening at the Grenfell inquiry at the moment. Two companies have been particularly singled out — I think it is Arconic and Celotex. It is said that they knew that they had been providing substandard materials. Arconic and Celotex are both major suppliers to the building industry. Has a lot of their material been used here in Northern Ireland? Have we had a chance to test it? Does the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service feel that there is a pushback from the industry about banning anything that has a polyurethane core of greater than 30%? I think that is the critical factor.
Mr Somerville: The key aspect is that the proposed amendment to building regulations is actually not going to permit those types of products to ever be used on buildings again, and that is of key importance going forward. It is difficult that building regulations cannot go back and look at buildings that may already have that cladding fitted. However, out of the 147 buildings in Northern Ireland that have cladding, we have visited the great majority of those premises to confirm that the measures they have in place are appropriate. Bear in mind that the responsibility for fire safety in those buildings sits with the owner of the building, who must ensure, under the legislative requirements, that their building is safe for people to use. There has been such extensive documentation produced following Grenfell about how to assess a building's safety in relation to ACM cladding, and about the types of cladding that have been found wanting, and that work is a very key thing that needs to continue as we go forward.
Mr McHugh: Ar dtús, buíochas as do ráiteas. Thank you for your statement. The consultation and your answers on it have been very informative. They have made me very aware of some of the issues that firefighters are confronted with on a daily basis, in many respects. I was intrigued by the differential between "relevant buildings" and "relevant premises". Have you any statistics that compare the likelihood of a fire in the first instance in relevant premises and relevant buildings? I know it is your objective for all buildings to be more or less classified on a similar basis.
Mr Somerville: You are asking if we have statistics comparing relevant premises to relevant buildings. The answer is that we do not have statistics, because buildings are not categorised as a relevant building or a relevant premises. It is quite complicated when it comes to drawing up statistics as to the number of fires and the danger and risk exposed by fire. The key aspect for the Fire and Rescue Service, and what the building regulations are attempting to achieve, is that a fire will not spread beyond the compartment of origin. If we think back, we got considerable footage in the media at the Coolmoyne House fire that happened only six months after the Grenfell disaster. In that fire, the fire was confined to the room of origin on the ninth floor of a high-rise block. That is exactly how we expect fire to behave, which allows us to provide a very effective response to extinguish a fire. That is what should happen in the event of a fire, and that is what building regulations and this proposed amendment are all designed to achieve.
Mr McHugh: Thank you. Is there an implication of a limitation in respect of the resources that you have at your disposal when you are attacking a fire that is in a building of that height?
Mr Graham: Sorry, I did not quite pick up the question. I will pick that one up.
Mr McHugh: Sorry. In terms of the resources that you have at your disposal, is there a limitation there? You talked about buildings at a lower height — 11 metres, I think you said — where you can access the outside cladding and so on, and safely remove it in the event of it going on fire? Is that as a result of the limitations of your equipment and the like?
Mr Graham: We have what we would call a set predetermined attendance depending on the type of premises that are on fire. For a normal property fire, it would be two pumps and above, and that would change depending on the type of fire. We have recently purchased new high-reach appliances which reach up to 42 metres. As Geoff has already said, we carry portable ladders within each of the appliances. We will always mobilise the appropriate weight of response, depending on the premises that are actually on fire.
Mr Catney: Thanks for your oral evidence from the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service. I have two quick questions. One is what the Fire and Rescue Service itself thinks the impact of the proposed changes will be. In your view, do the current building regulations require further strengthening?
Mr Graham: The impact of the proposed changes is covered in detail in the impact assessment done by the Department of Finance. The impact is relatively small in Northern Ireland, in that we do not have a large number of high-rise premises. We estimate there are only 147 and, with an estimated three new premises per year, this will have a very low impact on the built environment in Northern Ireland.
Can you just reconfirm the second part of your question?
Mr Catney: First of all, thanks for that. The second part is whether, in your opinion, the current building regulations require any further strengthening in other aspects from a fire safety perspective.
Mr Somerville: Yes. We would support a lot of other changes to the building regulations. Those are actually proposed, and we will work with the Northern Ireland Building Regulations Advisory Council to bring those through in due course. There are a series of other amendments proposed, and NIFRS certainly wishes to see more amendments made to make fire safety in buildings even better in Northern Ireland. Thankfully, you will be glad to hear, that programme of work is ongoing, and we are fully engaged in assisting with that.
Mr Frew: On that question, can you outline briefly what those other proposals that you are trying to work in are?
Mr Somerville: I simply could not do that, because there are a quite a large number of them, from simple things to do with smoke alarms in domestic premises right through to other types of changes that are proposed. It would be impossible to cover those. Many hundreds of amendments to technical booklet E are being proposed, and to cover them would take a very long time. I do not have the information to hand, sorry.
Mr Frew: I understand that, and we are all quite busy, but can you even provide the Committee with a written paper on that?
The Chairperson (Dr Aiken): Geoff, the question was whether it would be possible to give a written paper to the Committee, because even though we are the Committee for Finance, building regulations come under our remit. We would quite like to see the proposals that you would like to put in, because one of the things that we as the Executive want to see is a substantial increase in the housebuilding programme, particularly in social housing. We would like to see, of course, that social housing being built to the highest possible standards, both for the people who will be using it and more importantly, in some respects, to make sure that the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service is not unduly burdened. If we could have that, it would be quite useful.
Mr Somerville: Chair, I would really like to encourage us taking any proposals through the NIBRAC subcommittee for fire safety, because that is where we do our programme of work and we discuss those with the other agencies, such as council building control staff, who also bring changes forward. That programme of work is ongoing. This is the first element of that process, to bring through these consultation changes in relation to relevant buildings and following Grenfell. That further programme of work is going to continue for quite some time, so I really would try and encourage that we allow that to work through and bring our proposals through that group as the best forum for doing that.
Mr Graham: Chair, would it be helpful if our membership in that subcommittee had that conversation with the committee and asked that those proposals are forwarded to you, where appropriate?
Mr Frew: Yes, that would be great, thank you. Whilst we have this stipulation of 18 metres, and I understand completely why that would be and why you would want to reduce it to 11 metres —. This is not necessarily a question for you with regard to the impact assessment, but surely that would have an effect on the product? Why would anybody want to use a product that was deemed not safe for 18 metres? Why would anyone want to put that in a building that was 6 or 7 metres?
Mr Somerville: This is all about market response. Specifying in law and in a technical booklet what products are permissible keeps that very much restricted. We have seen the reports in only the last fortnight of the phase 2 Grenfell inquiry, reporting that certain manufacturers falsified literature, or allegedly have falsified literature, indicating that their products were safer than what they were. That is really what the outcome of the Grenfell inquiry is identifying: that all the processes in that regard are not as robust as they need to be, which is why, of course, these amendments are being made to our own building regulations.
Mr Frew: Just on that, I have read some of the articles, and it seems to be the case that there has been this flaw of non-compliance and products being advertised in error or by design. What is to prevent false documentation, false compliance and false testing happening in the future?
Mr Somerville: It is all about certification and the oversight of that. Of course, you will know that the Grenfell inquiry looked for much stricter regulatory control over building control processes and the entire industry. The industry has been found —. There are significant shortfalls, and in the knowledge of architects for example, as well. All of the Grenfell recommendations will, hopefully, make this not happen in the future, but of course there is still a fair bit of a programme of work to bring that into effect.
Mr Frew: As the fire authority and in everything else that you do, the responsibility that you have and the good work that you do for the population of Northern Ireland, do you guys have any input into the actual testing regime and the classifications? You quoted A2-s1, dO or class A1. Do you have any input into those testing regimes? Are you sufficiently assured that those are rigorous enough to actually provide the outcomes that they are designed to?
Mr Somerville: I am glad to say that we have no input whatsoever into those testing regimes. They are all British standards. They are accepted tests. They are European standards. We fully support those tests; they are robust and extremely effective. However, the Fire and Rescue Service does not have input into how those are done. We do not need it, to be frank. They are extremely effective, and it is very much the scientists who carry out those tests. We have our own testing facilities in Northern Ireland, which sit alongside Ulster University, to provide such testing.
Mr Frew: Although I have 20 years' experience in the construction industry, I will not pretend that I know what I am talking about here, but there seem to be a number of testing regimes. One is where they grind the material into powder to burn, and, in another one, a rig is set up to present an example of a wall, which is then burned or tested under conditions. I take it that the regulations that I have just quoted — A2-s1, dO or class A1 — are the grinding of material into a powder to burn. Is that correct?
Mr Somerville: That is correct. That test is proving that the product is non-combustible. The proposal being brought into effect in Northern Ireland is no longer to accept that large-scale test, which is known as a British standard 8414 test, which is a large-scale cladding test. The results of that test are evaluated using a building research 135 paper to confirm that that material passes or fails that test. The key aspect to recognise here is that that large-scale test will no longer be acceptable, but the non-combustible test, which is the first one that you described, will be the acceptable test of the product. That is a much safer and higher standard.
Mr Frew: So, instead of testing a scenario or a wall, you are testing the product ground into a powder. Are there any flaws or chinks in the armour that you can see with that test that would allow producers to game the results, for want of a better word?
Mr Somerville: There are no flaws with the tests. Potential flaws can arise if the building substitutes different products when it is being constructed or the level and quality of the construction is poor. For example, on the outside of a cladded building, cavity barriers need to be put in place to stop a fire spreading up the inside of the cavity. When the building is being constructed, the risk lies in all the design elements not being properly installed or fitted. Hopefully, that answers your question.
Mr Frew: It does. Thank you very much for your time.
Mr Catney: I notice that the Fire and Rescue Service highlighted that it did not agree with the new guidance on the external fire spread considerations. I just want to outline my objection to the new guidelines in relation to the external fire spread considerations and how impacts on the regulations that we are trying to consider. I just want to make that point.
Mr Wells: A message has just come in on Twitter that the Finance Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly is much more interesting than the plenary sessions. Somebody is watching. That says a lot.
The Chairperson (Dr Aiken): Michael, Paddy and Geoff, thank you very much for the evidence that you have given today. However, I would like to make some further comments. First, on behalf of our Health Minister and, indeed, all MLAs, I would like to place on record how much we appreciate the work and role of the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service.
Some Members: Hear, hear.
The Chairperson (Dr Aiken): Secondly, on behalf of my Chief Whip, Robbie Butler — I would not be allowed out without saying that — thank you very much indeed for giving your evidence today. If possible, we would like to get back in contact with you at some stage if we have any further questions.
Mr Graham: Thank you, Chair and Committee. We genuinely appreciate engaging in these conversations. Hopefully, it is clear that it is really important to us as well.