Dr. Lorraine D'Arcy:

I will cover the first recommendation and Mr. O'Connor will take the second. On the first one, we need to have a real conversation about the lifelong costs of where we live and the influences on those decisions. Frequently our first home, and this is compounded by the grants that are given for first-time buyers, is a suburban home. It ticks the boxes, we think we want the three-bedroom semi-detached but we do not talk about how we will end up sitting in the car all weekend dropping children to sports clubs because where we bought that house is on the periphery of the city or out in the countryside and we are not close to amenities. We think of the immediate bricks and mortar, and not about how that serves us in the long term. If we found ourselves with a physical impairment and inability to drive we would be isolated in that place. Studies I did ten years ago found that people who lived in the newer suburbs spent significantly more on transportation costs, spent less time at home, and had higher education levels and higher salary costs, moreso than everybody else. People who lived in deprived neighbourhoods in the suburbs were spending more than €10 per week more on transport fuel than their counterparts in the urban deprived areas in the more traditional sense.

They were also earning nearly more than €16,000 per annum than them in the first place. We need to have a real conversation about the lifetime costs.