Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair, and the witnesses for being here today. In particular, I thank SOLAS, which was a part of the group that hosted two of us in Mount Lucas recently, where we saw with our own eyes the National Construction Campus, and all the fantastic work that is going on. Following on from the remarks by Mr. Brownlee and Mr. Dalton around how the model of learning has changed, it was really interesting to hear how much was being done on-site, where guys are being physically brought out and they are allowed to learn there and then, and how that is getting such great buy-in from construction companies. We probably need to look at more of that.

On that day, we spoke a lot about apprenticeships, and I see in the statement today the 50,000 additional construction workers that we are going to require in our economy between now and 2030 was referenced. I have looked at this a little bit since we last met, and based on my research, I am concerned that the State is not leading by example when it comes to taking on apprenticeships. I would like to ask each organisation here how many apprenticeships are currently in their organisations.

Innovation, which we have spoken about, and new technology have to have a huge role to play in construction, and in future-proofing the construction industry. The two main benefits, as I see it, are the reduction of both carbon and time. As we know, we are faced with two significant crises in both of those areas. I am yet to be convinced on the time perspective, and part of that has been explained by Mr. O'Connor in respect of modular homes, which we had the presentation on. This was more with regard to the site-servicing element than the delivery of the units themselves. That is fair enough, but we still have to wait for those sites to be serviced, so how can we figure this out? How can we speed this up? If this is not going to be a game changer in terms of saving time, then it is not going to be a game changer.

Mr. O'Connor spoke about moving from junior infants to second level and, hopefully, on to third level with regard to rapid delivery homes. The private sector was classes ahead of us on this, and that is because we already have hotels, holiday camps and examples of this working around the country for the last five years or more. They are presumably doing it because it saved in costs. Did it save in time there? Is there something we can learn there from the site-servicing perspective?

I know Coillte has gone through this with us, but are there a couple of key takeaways we could have on what we could do to shift the dial on the 25% timber frame? What can we do, as members, to help us get there? Is the three- versus 24-storey legislation a sticking point? Does that need to change if we are to get genuine buy-in across the construction sector?

I have a small question for the National Standards Authority of Ireland. SME supports were spoken about, and I am wondering what they will look like. From SOLAS's perspective, the numbers it is giving us about people coming through its doors are all super impressive. How many of these are front-line construction? How many of them are people working physically in construction rather than in the construction industry? How many people are bricklayers or whatever, versus sales representatives in wholesalers?

That is a lot of questions, but the last speaker got an extra ten minutes, so I hope I will get the same.