Mr. Tom Parlon:

I see our submission did not have much impact on Deputy Coppinger.

First, I will address Deputy Durkan's questions. He is right about land speculation in the past. It drove site prices out of control and that led largely to the crazy prices that were achieved. It is not the case now. We only refer to a house costing €300,000 because that is the asking price. The new type of house that buyers will get now with the new building regulations, etc., is a superb quality home in terms of the finish. It is a very good product. There is an assigned certifier system that it has to be signed off by a chartered surveyor, a chartered engineer or an architect. That adds substantially to the quality of the house and adds substantially to the cost. However, as members will tell me and as we can see from the chartered surveyors' figures, €30,000 is the absolute maximum one can put in for that particular site.

Some investors with the big funds have come in. We have seen various projects and massive numbers of sites being sold off to developers. When the number of sites is divided by the overall price, those individual sites can range from €20,000 to €150,000 each. An earlier contribution to this committee suggested that development land was sold for €120,000 or €140,000 per site. They say it is a question of location, location, location. However, somebody choosing to buy a site for €120,000 needs to get a very big mark-up on the build price. I do not think that can happen anymore and certainly we do not.

There have been suggestions about how to curb hoarding of sites and how to encourage people sitting on those sites to offload them. We would certainly favour such development generally. However, the reason that a number of sites are not being developed is not because somebody is sitting on them or as Deputy Coppinger said, that the individuals are on strike. It means there is a planning issue, a financial issue in terms of not being able to afford or not being able to draw down the finance to develop it, or far more likely there is an infrastructure issue in that there is not water supply, wastewater services or there is no road access to the sites. That was the past and I do not think we will see that in the future.

I did not see the article to which Deputy Coppinger referred, which was published in yesterday's edition of The Sunday Business Post. The Construction Industry Federation represents people who build and take risks in employing people, buying plant and getting their hands dirty every day. It does not represent speculators. In the past, some builders became speculators and they came to great grief as a result unfortunately. These individuals may well be among those who were referred to in yesterday's newspaper article.

To respond to Deputy O'Dowd, I agree the industry has ground to make up, as have politicians. The reason we are strongly in favour of a register is that it would exclude cowboys from the industry as it would include only professionals who know their business, are competent and tax compliant and meet all the other strict criteria that apply in building.

I will ask Mr. Fitzpatrick to respond to the question on making use of properties in town centres because he has a specific proposal to make on that issue. Some efforts have been made to encourage this practice in cities and there is certainly scope for doing so in all towns. I am from Offaly but my local town is Roscrea. Castle Street in the town used to be a thriving area with a hotel, a couple of banks, pubs and so forth. If one were to drive up the street at 11 p.m. nowadays, one would see perhaps three cars and every premises would be closed. There is certainly scope to take action in the area because the street has a large amount of space to accommodate people. Some form of an incentive to invest in it is needed.

I will respond to Deputy Coppinger before I ask Mr. Fitzpatrick to speak. I do not have any idea who the developers to whom she refers are. However, in my experience of the National Asset Management Agency, if it has signed off on a developer, it is because there is nothing left to get from him or her. NAMA has done a very effective job at working out a way to maximise the return it can make on whatever assets individuals have left.

The Deputy asked how much profit is enough and cited the views expressed by the chief executive officer of NAMA. I contradicted the statement he made at the time and I do not believe NAMA would still suggest that this view holds. A margin is whatever one may have left over. It is not the case that there is a €20,000 margin. Banks would seek a margin of 15% and I believe NAMA factors in a 15% margin for the builder when it is engaged in joint ventures or financially supporting some of their clients to build. There is a substantial amount of this type of construction taking place. As to the notion that a builder would not build for a margin of €20,000, I guarantee the Deputy that any builder, including the two gentlemen present, would take the hand of anyone they believed was offering a €20,000 margin on a €300,000 house. It is certainly not the case that such margins are available.

On the issue of developers being on strike, thankfully builders are finding work other than building houses because it is not economically viable to build a house in most cases. Perhaps the other witnesses would like to speak in greater detail on that issue. Anyone who walks around Dublin will see massive refurbishment works taking place throughout the city. Builders are becoming subcontractors and specialising in other works. Standard house building, which most small family builders used to engage in, is unviable at the current prices, given the costs the builder must incur and the prices available. Perhaps the developers are on strike and maybe they can afford to be on strike or have some money left over from the crash. However, many of the builders the Construction Industry Federation represents are still underemployed, which means there is capacity. We are concerned that a big pick-up in activity will result in a skills shortage. We are discussing that issue with SOLAS and a number of other education bodies because we know there are many people on the live register who have construction skills that need to be ungraded before they can go back on site. We look forward to having that problem. Currently, however, there is still capacity in the sector and we do not have a skills shortage.

In terms of house builders and general main contractors, some of the bigger schemes, which will involve main contractors, will be tendered and so on. Recently, I learned from one of our members, who is doing a substantial scheme of more than 100 houses, that he is operating on a margin of slightly more than 2%. Any businessman looking at that figure would say the margin is much too tight to guarantee a return. Margins are so low because of the competition in the business. To suggest that builders would not build for a margin of €60,000 is ridiculous. The Deputy should ask the CEO of NAMA if he continues to hold the view he expressed on this matter because it is used to have a go at builders. I can guarantee it is not the case.