Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

To come back on that, I know the houses in Ballymun have been delivered. I am talking about the here and now and going forward. There is inflation in construction. A quotation for the price of materials will only last seven days. The cost of materials is going up exponentially right now for three reasons: a lack of supply of native timber; Brexit; and supply chain issues due to the Covid pandemic. For instance, insulation materials cannot be manufactured because the resin used in bonding the insulation has not been produced and there is now a world shortage. The price of steel is going up because China has booked the world's supply and pre-ordered it and so on. The house that will be built during the rest of this year, and next year, will cost much more than the €230,000 in Ballymun or wherever it was built. We have inflationary pressure coupled with the fact that many workers went back home to eastern European countries during the Covid pandemic and may not come back to us. We have an inflationary situation. How do we deal with that?

On the concentration and densities of houses, it is all very fine that we need to put in all the social services we talk about but they come at a cost. They have to be built into the cost of the unit to deliver it. This is a problem in the private sector where the cost is so high to deliver a house and the rules will not allow a first-time buyer to get a mortgage to buy it. We have the perfect storm at the moment. I am concerned about projections for how many houses will be built based on what I can see happening on the ground. It is something we need to have a reality check on. That is just a comment. The witnesses do not need to answer.