Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will move on from that. On 8 February a retrofit grant system was launched for this country and the SCSI was present at the launch. The figures given on the day were from October. I deal with quantity surveyors on a daily and weekly basis. I understand that regions can vary and that the price per square foot can change but quantity surveyors are usually given between two and three weeks to come back with a price for a project that we might be looking at. Once you have the baseline set up on your system you can work throughout this whole country. At the moment the price per square foot in Limerick is between €172 and €180. I can tell the witnesses that because I am dealing with it on a daily basis. I understand that the witnesses are dealing with different regions. An insulation increase of 25% is coming on 1 July, news of which came to me by letter from Kingspan. I get weekly letters from suppliers to tell me about the different increases on different products. Some increases come every fortnight and some come every month. Concrete and different aggregates usually come every month but suppliers of insulation might write to me every two weeks. We have a computer system that updates that and shows, on a weekly to two-weekly basis, how fast this is moving. That is why I have not priced houses in two years. It is too dangerous to do so because one increase could take out your profit margins.

The lack of builders is also driving the price up because we do not have the tradesmen. We are ten years behind in apprenticeships. A figure of €145 per square foot does not fit with me, no matter where you are in the country. A figure of €170 to €180 per square foot is more accurate. Can the witnesses address that point?