Mr. Fergal O'Brien:

Domestic policy has set a cap on PPPs, which we believe is unnecessary and restrictive. The other observation I will make on the past decade is that we have the highest demand for new infrastructure in Europe because we have the fastest growing population, but we have the lowest level of expenditure. It is becoming a crunch point for the economy.

I will comment on apprenticeships and broadband and Mr. Ger Brady will comment on the housing issue.

On apprenticeships, there are 40 trade associations in total in IBEC and they have been active in supporting apprenticeships. These are industry-led initiatives in new occupations and new sectors of the economy in which we have never had apprenticeships before. We are diversifying that model away from the traditional trades into industry. It has probably been a case of mixed results. Even as recently as this week, a company based in the west observed to me that it had one apprenticeship on offer in a rural area. It went into all the local schools within a significant radius but did not get one single application for it.

There are several initiatives coming through. Some of our industry groups, such as engineering, med-tech and financial services, have launched some programmes over recent months. We are making some progress in this but a national effort between all stakeholders is required to really promote and sell the benefits of apprenticeships to parents because we are not getting the interest coming through. Business will play its part and we are seeing strong demand from business. However, we believe we need a stronger promotional effort to ensure school leavers and those making career decisions will see apprenticeships as a strong career choice.

It is important that administratively we are able to design apprenticeships, get the curricula agreed and put in place as quick as we can where industry has identified a need. The single biggest challenge is the hearts and minds one of promoting apprenticeships as a career opportunity. We are keen to demonstrate best practice and have advocates and successful apprenticeship graduates to help promote the career opportunities that are there. The challenge is that we are not getting the demand coming through from school leavers.

Broadband is a significant business issue right across the country. We have looked at the percentage of businesses which have challenges in respect of broadband. We see good progress being made. We are engaging closely with the private sector with its roll-out of broadband, which is accelerating. Many businesses which had difficulty last year now have good broadband coverage. We hope in the next 18 months that we will see further progress.

As the labour market gets tighter and tying back to the challenges of absorption and capacity in the economy, traffic congestion is becoming a real crisis. With a tight labour market, many businesses are reporting to us that they are trying to offer more flexible working arrangements and that many employees cannot cope with commute times and traffic congestion pressures. Many employees want to work more from home and businesses want to facilitate that but are unable to do so. While businesses are more likely to be in urban areas and in turn are more likely to get broadband connectivity, connectivity for businesses based in remote areas is equally important and probably a bigger challenge for us.