Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Before we finish, I return to something Deputy Ó Broin mentioned. In the event of a hard Brexit, the economy will contract. At the same time we are talking about net immigration increasing, possibly above 20% because Ireland will be seen as attractive for people from the UK. This means we will be getting a double whammy. With a contracting economy, the fiscal space tightens and the private sector delivery will also contract, which puts greater onus on the State to deliver social and affordable housing.

Given that we will be in a contracting fiscal space, have we put any emphasis on trying to resolve the State's failure to find an off-balance sheet model to deliver both social and affordable housing? The great contradiction with Brexit is that, according to predictions, we should have 40,000 job losses in a hard Brexit, so we should resolve our skills shortages in the construction industry fairly quickly. The whole thing is so hard to predict, but a few things are coming through.

Everybody is saying that if a hard Brexit happens, our economy is going to contract and we could see net migration increasing. Those two issues would have a negative impact on the housing market, specifically in regard to the private sector, so the State needs to ramp up its delivery in a tightening fiscal space. The only way to do that is off-balance sheet and we have failed to deliver a sustainable off-balance sheet model to date. Will Mr. Hogan comment?