Mr. Patrick Davitt:

The construction cost of houses in Ireland has been very expensive in recent years, right through the recession and right up to date. It is something that is mystifying. If one is looking at a survey, most auctioneers would look at a survey of three-bedroom properties, because they are to be found throughout the country, be it in Sligo, Dublin, Galway, Mullingar or wherever. The price, value and cost to build such a property in 2006 would be anything from €70 to €100 per square foot. That price has not changed today. Moreover, this is not due to wages in total but to the actual cost of the products one uses, which appear not to have reduced at all. That building cost is there and it remains quite high. I acknowledge that much of the value and price of property in 2006 was way above builders' profit on top of the actual cost of building houses. At present however, if for example one takes a three-bedroom semi-detached house in Longford, for which one might get €60,000 or €70,000, there is no way in which a builder could build one of those houses for that sort of money. Until such time as builders can build properties and get a reasonable amount of money for what they build, such properties will not be built. Consequently, what will happen one day is that when the existing stock of property runs out, the property market will move on quite rapidly and its price will move considerably.