Dr. Pat Daly:

I will follow up on Ms Farrelly's points. Due to Brexit and distribution issues, we are currently having problems sourcing product, which is impacting on some contracts. However, the feeling is that as Brexit and distribution issues are addressed, as deliveries ease and product gets easier to find, some of the cost will come back in. That should alleviate some of the pressures. In time, as we emerge from the Covid pandemic and come through Brexit, the hope is that we will get the cost back in a relatively straight line and there will be more manageable inflation on some of the contracts. That is what we are hoping for. There are some good examples of that. We have a development arm in Limerick in terms of the public interest works. Even if councils want to get back into the building game directly, it is very difficult because the staffing is not there. We will see a lot more special purpose vehicles or joint venture type arrangements that will accelerate the delivery of housing in the future, but it will need to be properly thought out.

Certainly, in the case of the Limerick development draft plan, and it may be common to other development plans in trying to address and even get round the issues Senator Ahearn mentioned in respect of Irish Water, where service sites or small clusters emerge, a lot of that is ready-made for small builders and procurement through smaller framework contracts. We will seek to make some schemes available so that smaller builders can come in. They will be the right fit for such projects. The larger density projects will be built by the larger commercial interests.

There will probably be a blended approach. A one-size-fits-all approach will not be the solution. There will be individual solutions, not just in different locations but in different areas within locations. For example, county towns will have a different approach from a city or metropolitan area. It will be a matter of how we structure or organise around that rather than getting involved in building directly. There may might be a different organisation of the process.