Engineers call for licensing body and regulator

godtabh

Link

The body that represents engineers working in Ireland is calling for a new licensing body and regulator to oversee the sector.

Engineers Ireland says the Government should not be waiting for a major incident in the construction industry before taking action to address the problem.

It says only chartered engineers should have the authority to sign-off on any projects where public health and safety are factors.

This is more to do with companies. I'm not allowed to sign off on a lot of things and what I do sign off still gets checked/approved by directors

Ninja101

We don't have Building Control here, shure it'll be grand it's only a shed anyway.
*collapses*

Red Alert

I think the profession should be regulated. People who screw up and cause public safety hazards should have their license to practice revoked.

They need to do something also about controlling the term 'Engineer'.

sul02

Definitely should have control over the title engineer. I dont mean it this in an "im better than you" sort of way. Its just the job title is bandied around an awful lot. I have no idea how this will be done though and i know it is way easier for it to be said than done.

At a grass roots level in industry you learn most of it on the job so the variation between a science and an eng degree is minimal.
At a senior level, when looking at two canidiates with 20 years identical experience and the only difference between them being that one earned a Beng and one earned a BSc 2 decades ago - I wouldnt argue that one of them wasnt a "real engineer"

godtabh

sul02 wrote: »

I have no idea how this will be done though and i know it is way easier for it to be said than done.

Anything with a level 9 qualification or above? Or any one that qualifies to go for chatership?

sul02

Engineers Ireland have the power to say that only people with X qualifications are recognised by their organisation as legitimate engineers and they exercise that power.

However i think the majority of companies around Ireland dont see membership to Engineers Ireland as legitimate requirement for hiring a person to work as an engineer.

If companies started advertising the minimum requirements for engineering positions as being a degree and membership to Engineers Ireland, then Engineers Ireland would have control over what type of candidate was eligible to apply for the engineering role.

If something like that was in place then i think it is then up to the companies to start renaming certain job titles to better reflect the job. For example regulatory engineer = regulatory specialist, customer relations engineer = customer relations specialist (you can get where this is going...)

I think bottom line is Engineers Ireland need to get up and get out to every HR department in every company that employs engineers and let them know why they have requirements for membership. If the reasons they provide are valid, companies will listen.

dan_d

I don't think it's much to do with membership of EI, more that your qualifications are engineering related. For example i noticed on a job website recently they were looking for a "window's engineer". I clicked out of curiousity, and it was an ad looking for someone to fit windows......
I know they want chartered engineers to sign off on designs, so obviously that's based on your EI membership but on a more general note, I think the focus is coming on the qualifications that you have, if you're calling yourself an engineer. It's based on the fact that if you are working in Europe as an engineer, you have spent X number of years in college and have the qualifications to back it up. And if you don't have them then you are just not allowed call yourself an engineer.
Not to sound snobby but I think there (actually I know) there are quite a few people out there with Certs etc, calling themselves engineers and earning as much as fully qualified engineers....I think this will probably hit them hardest. They'll have to go back and retrain etc. I know there are people out there that will call me a snob, but let's face it, if you don't have medical training you don't call yourself a doctor. Same goes for surgeons, teachers, lawyers, accountants.......engineering is one of the least regulated industries out there. The one thing they do need to be careful of are the newer braches of engineering...can't think of any, but just that people don't get cut out who should be included.

quietsailor

dan_d wrote: »

I don't think it's much to do with membership of EI, more that your qualifications are engineering related. For example i noticed on a job website recently they were looking for a "window's engineer". I clicked out of curiousity, and it was an ad looking for someone to fit windows......
I know they want chartered engineers to sign off on designs, so obviously that's based on your EI membership but on a more general note, I think the focus is coming on the qualifications that you have, if you're calling yourself an engineer. It's based on the fact that if you are working in Europe as an engineer, you have spent X number of years in college and have the qualifications to back it up. And if you don't have them then you are just not allowed call yourself an engineer.
Not to sound snobby but I think there (actually I know) there are quite a few people out there with Certs etc, calling themselves engineers and earning as much as fully qualified engineers....I think this will probably hit them hardest. They'll have to go back and retrain etc. I know there are people out there that will call me a snob, but let's face it, if you don't have medical training you don't call yourself a doctor. Same goes for surgeons, teachers, lawyers, accountants.......engineering is one of the least regulated industries out there. The one thing they do need to be careful of are the newer braches of engineering...can't think of any, but just that people don't get cut out who should be included.

As much as i agree with you on the abuse of the title engineer I don't think a blanket ban on anybody having less than a level 8 academic qualification shouldn't be allowed to call themselves an engineer. Just now I'm back in college studying for a level 8 BEng, however I originally trained as a Marine Engineer in CIT. Back then that qualification was a Diploma yet I was licenced by the Irish government to work worldwide as an Engineer on a legal basis. I'm still an Engineer and very proud to be so - should I be stricken from the lists simply because I earned a Diploma?

godtabh

quietsailor wrote: »

As much as i agree with you on the abuse of the title engineer I don't think a blanket ban on anybody having less than a level 8 academic qualification shouldn't be allowed to call themselves an engineer. Just now I'm back in college studying for a level 8 BEng, however I originally trained as a Marine Engineer in CIT. Back then that qualification was a Diploma yet I was licenced by the Irish government to work worldwide as an Engineer on a legal basis. I'm still an Engineer and very proud to be so - should I be stricken from the lists simply because I earned a Diploma?

The hole point of one group having legal standing would mean that going forward this wouldnt be the case any longer.

But you have to remember that the IEI allow people who dont have a level 8 join be it at associate level or what ever. These people can still go on and get chattered but not in the same way as some one who has a level 8.

The system is flexible but at the urine is being extracted.

DublinDilbert

quietsailor wrote: »

I was licenced by the Irish government to work worldwide as an Engineer on a legal basis...

I'm not sure how the Irish government can allow licence you to work world wide as an engineer! Each country/territory will have its own rules, nothing to do with little old Ireland...

The likes of Canada would have a blanket ban on anyone calling themselves an engineer, unless they have an approved level 8 qualification.... I wouldn't be in favour of such an approach here either, but I think something needs to be done...

I think some sort of process is needed, maybe to include the following things:-

• Relevant qualification
• Relevant professional experience
• Basic course / exam on ethics / safety

dan_d

Apologies quietsailor I don't mean to offend. But yes, I think essentially that is along the lines of what engineers ireland is looking for.

I'm not sure how Ireland would have licensed you to practice as an engineer in another country - you probably could work as one, but could you sign off on designs etc? I'm guessing that your qualification in another country would have to meet that country's standards , not ours, to allow you to perform certain jobs while there.

Not getting in to the specifics here, however this is what I was referring to when I said that they need to be careful of how they go about this ( I wasn't very clear sorry). There are so many new (er) branches of engineering and so many variations on qualifications that they will need to look long and hard into creating some sort of standard or benchmark against which to measure all these qualifications - as Dublin Dilbert has said - without eliminating every qualification other than degrees. I'm not saying a blanket ban on anything other than a level 8 qualification is a good idea. In fact I think it would seriously impact the number of future engineers in this country, particularly when you consider the small numbers doing honours maths and sciences in the LC every year and the lack of interest in these subjects. I also think that we have so many people with qualifications that are not Level 8 degrees and are extremely good at their jobs, with huge experience, that it would be an almost impossible thing to implement. But the fact of the matter is that, yes, some people will find themselves with an egineering qualification that is not a sufficient one and will have to retrain. A possible solution may be a graded system of some sort - each say, tier, with it's own creditability and standards and title. It's not something I've thought of too deeply though, so that would just be a vague idea.

Dilbert75

DublinDilbert wrote: »

I think some sort of process is needed, maybe to include the following things:-

• Relevant qualification
• Relevant professional experience
• Basic course / exam on ethics / safety

We have that - its called the Charter.

godtabh

DublinDilbert wrote: »

The likes of Canada would have a blanket ban on anyone calling themselves an engineer, unless they have an approved level 8 qualification....

Is that not covered under the Washington (or similar) accord?

Dankoozy

more regulation = bad