Mr. Frank Kelly:

I might make a slight clarification on that. Contractors operate on a very tight margin. That is a known fact. It is in the public domain. Ultimately, if the costs are to be borne by the contractor, we will see failures in the industry, which is not what we want. We want contractors to be able to deliver. Unfortunately, whether it is the one-off house, in the case of the mica, or large-scale, high-density residential or commercial projects, the contractors will look to pass on those costs. They will look to recover them in terms of the public contracts. Where it is a private contract, they will seek to recover those costs. Unfortunately, all of those costs will not be recoverable so there are far-reaching implications with this levy.

One of the points Mr. James and the SCSI were making, which is very important to make here, when it comes to the delivery of housing, high-density residential plays a huge part in the delivery of the numbers we are trying to achieve within the sector. Unfortunately, viability is a major issue. We have had two price increases for concrete from September to the early part of this year, and we are already on notice that there are further concrete costs coming in terms of energy for cement, and now we are looking at an additional 5%. Unfortunately, high-density residential can only be built in construction. In housing at the lower scale, you might be able to look at alternative forms of construction and possibly eliminate concrete, but for high-density there is only one solution, so there is an increased cost to delivery.