Regulation and Licensing of Professional Engineers

I attended a meeting this evening at Clyde Road hosted by John Power to discuss regulation and licensing of professional engineers.   This was a part of a series of meetings,  first started in October as I previously reported.

John has a working "strawman" document which we discussed this evening.  The fundamentals of the document are,  I believe we all agreed,  good.   Our main debate this evening is whether to adopt an incremental approach to legislation to extend the number of functions reserved to Chartered Engineers - ie requiring,  by Irish law,  authorisation by suitably skilled CEngs. - ; or,  by contrast,  whether instead to approach the issue using a "blanket approach" similar to current Canadian law,  in which all engineering works which may impact on public heath and safety,  including environmental impact,   and/or material damage to assets,   should require such authorisation.

We also noted that a pragmatic,  and high quality,  approach in Ireland on this issue could set a bar which would make Ireland even more attractive for foreign direct investment due to its legislated quality approach to all Engineering disciplines,  thus enhancing Ireland's international competitiveness.

It was agreed to focus on the "blanket approach",  and further work is accordingly required to build upon the strawman document.

John will update Council at its next meeting (on Saturday next) and in due course bring recommendations from the group to Council for approval.