Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I emphasise that the purpose of these sessions is to find solutions. There will be an outcome to this, in case our guests are wondering why they are sitting here answering our questions for two or three hours. Part of this is about us as a committee writing to the Minister to try to convey some of the urgency that all three organisations are outlining.

I might make a couple of general observations before following them up with some questions. When we debated these issues previously, particularly over the course of the four SCSI reports and the EY Cork apartment reports, much of our debate was about how to narrow that gap between affordability and viability. The problem is the debate has changed. Whatever one's view of Croí Cónaithe - it is not the subject of this debate, so I will not open that argument - it has changed the parameters because we are no longer talking about closing a viability-affordability gap but rather a viability-market price gap. That is a big shift, and I am not sure whether everybody, aside from the specialists, appreciates the significance of that. If we were to take the various recommendations, good, bad and indifferent, from the SCSI reports and apply all of those savings, we will be no longer moving towards affordability but just towards the market price, which was a problem previously. I think that is important to emphasise in the context of this conversation.

Turning to the Construction Industry Federation, and this is a reflection and not in any way a criticism, given I agree in respect of the data underpinning the housing needs demands assessment, HNDA, Mr. Taaffe and I spent quite a long time in South Dublin County Council, which has an abundance of zoned land and a good deal of serviced lands, including two strategic development zones, SDZs. We have enough zoned land for ten years on the basis of the current Government projections, so we are okay in that sense. An SDZ was agreed for Clonburris in 2018 and, although Covid happened, we are only now getting the first two planning applications, one of which is public and the other private. I am open to an argument regarding the correct targets and level of zoning, but even in local authorities where there has not been a request to dezone land and where there is ample zoned land, that is not solving the particular problems we are discussing here. Sometimes we look at Cork, Meath or Kildare and their zoning pressures and forget there are also other local authorities that are different.

I was trying to get into Mr. Taaffe's mind as Mr. Benson was making his comments about compact growth given, of course, Mr. Taaffe is a former planner. There are risks in some of these issues. We can find a really good mechanism for reducing some costs, but there can be negatives elsewhere in terms of good place-making or good-quality urban environments, and in this conversation we have to be careful of that. That is not a recommendation for inertia or inaction but is about ensuring we will not create a problem somewhere else. Therefore, everything should be on the table to be considered, but we also need to ensure that as we move towards compact growth, we will get good-quality, high-density, mixed-use inner-city environments in which people will want to live and stay for long periods and that will involve some football pitches for kids, as well as pocket parks and the other shared spaces.

On labour - again, this is not in any way to question the point Mr. Benson was making - when I talk to SME builders, particularly outside of Dublin, they tell me that it is not necessarily about the hourly rate for the job but the long-term employment security and the inability to secure a mortgage, not least for those traditional crafts and trades. While all the work our guests' organisations are involved in along with the relevant Department is important, we also need to think about how we can ensure young men and women coming into the skills trades will have lifetime career progression and opportunities, such as those in Germany and other jurisdictions, to be able to aspire to the kinds of salaries that some of their counterparts on the professional side of the construction have. I add that only for the record in order that when we come to our report, it will be considered.

Some of my questions might reflect foolish ideas but we need to think about everything. Given the level of price uncertainty with some construction sector inputs and given earlier during Covid the State intervened to play a very significant role in procuring large volumes of materials to tackle the pandemic, are we at a stage whereby the Government needs to think about, for example, certain inputs rather than making each contractor have to bid on the open marketplace? Should the State step in and, whether through a vehicle such as the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, or something else, use its bulk purchasing power to secure discounts on larger acquisitions and materials and to sell them on at cost over a longer period? That would have risks, given we might lock in higher prices and there would not be the advantage of a fall, but do we need to start thinking about something like that? I am thinking, in particular, of timber, steel and some of the other big price-takers at the moment that we do not control.

I was taken by Mr. O'Connell's point about finance for apartments. If there were ever a vehicle that could lend large volumes of money to build the kinds of apartment developments that find it really difficult to get sustainable finance, it is Home Building Finance Ireland, HBFI, but I am not seeing it do that. Do our guests have thoughts or considerations about how we can improve HBFI to be a more viable lender for some of those projects?

On site servicing, I am thinking of the City Edge project, where there are complex externalities. Is there a role for an expanded Housing Infrastructure Services Company, HISCo-type, vehicle to take off the pressure at the early stages? It is not money for free or the bureaucratic local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF. The private sector, ultimately, would have to pay but it would not have to do so as an upfront cost and there would be some of that de-risking.

I am keen to go back to the matter of technology because, despite what other members have said, there are some savings to be made in building technologies. The question is how we get those in to bring about some of those cost reductions.

I agree with all three organisations about de-risking. If there is one thing the State can do, it is to improve, clarify and reduce the time involved, whether on planning or procurement or zoning, to reduce the risk. I am not in any way suggesting we should over-zone or reduce standards but do the witnesses have specific recommendations for changes there? We could produce a report that does not have 50 recommendations but has more than three. I am giving a little more latitude than in my first round of questions. Where are the salient points we could press in that regard? It would be good if we could give a report to the Minister with some specific recommendations on the issues outlined.