Mr. Brendan O'Connor:

My knowledge of the consumer legislation is extremely limited, so that is new information on the use of caps. Being a macroeconomist, the policy advice that I give is quite different to this issue. I have limited knowledge of the profitability of energy companies in Ireland. Some are State-owned and some are not. The majority, with probably just one notable exception, buy energy on international markets and essentially just supply households and businesses domestically. We have a gigantic cost shock. If the price was capped, someone would bear the burden, including owners of those firms, which is the State in some instances. I have not looked at the balance sheets or profitability positions, so I could not comment. Someone has to bear the cost of what comes into the country. The Government has made some effort to alleviate the burden on certain households. The private sector has to bear some costs as well and probably is in some examples we have given here. The economy, society and State as a whole are worse off from the shock. Where the burden of policies fall has to be thought through. It is like when one pushes something down a hole and wonders where it will pop up on the other side. If I had given it more thought, I would probably be able to do more analysis today, but these are the thoughts I have here.

The Government has a housing policy, which I understand is settled. The intention is to increase supply and there are various mechanisms to do so. Supply is increasing. First quarter numbers were the strongest in the series. There is seasonality to housing supply. One should not multiply the 5,000 or 6,000 units produced in the first quarter by four and end up with an annual number, because numbers generally pick up throughout the year. Those numbers in the first quarter are encouraging and suggest a substantial increase in year-on-year supply. Approximately 35,000 housing units have started construction in the last 12 months. That does not mean there will be 35,000 completions in the next year. It depends on the mix of housing units. Some take longer than others. We will see something in that order in the next year to 18 months. There is unmet demand from the last decade or so. The reasons for that are reasonably well understood and have been debated in many forums. That demand needs to be caught up on. It is the view of the Department and my view that increase in supply will alleviate the increase in price, whether on the purchase or rental market.

My view is that increasing supply is a means of alleviating the issue but there are many other policy instruments in Housing for All, which have been discussed in many fora.

I have answered the points made about a cap and housing. Was anything missed in the middle?