Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is specifically on using modern methods of construction to build. The Madrid metro was built quickly for an underground project and it was able to move forward. I am quite interested in this and I raised it with the CIF earlier today, but it is not specifically a budgetary matter, which I appreciate. I will follow up on that.

If we are looking at different subsidies like the housing assistance payment, HAP, and the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, to a certain extent, we see they will exceed €1 billion this year. We have spoken to the Parliamentary Budget Office, which we deal with quite a lot in this committee, about the sustainability of the model because it has led to the State funding two fifths of private rental tenancies and how many people have called that into question. Does the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform have any major concerns that this is unsustainable and a poor use of scarce resources? I was elected as a councillor in 2014 and since then I have been dealing with people on housing and I have never seen it quite as bad as it is. I want to ask about the sustainability of relying on the likes of HAP. I know the answer will probably be that we have Housing for All and we will have all the houses from that, but it seems to be slow off the mark and I am not seeing it coming on stream in Galway. If there was an issue with delivery in Housing for All, would the Department be concerned at the sustainability of that reliance on rental subsidies?