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

To pick up on that, it could be made even easier, rather than asking a company to deal with two State agencies. If we are creating multi-annual framework agreements for companies – for the building of public homes, for example – such agreements could include seed capital to allow the companies to get themselves up and running or expand instead of staged payments or payment at the end. Manufacturers factor their costs into the price they charge for their work anyway, so in a sense we would just be giving them an advance payment. The easier we make this for people, the better. I see no reason why, if company X, be it a Coillte company or private company, meets all the requirements for a framework agreement but needs X million euro in start-up capital to expand or for new machinery, it could not be worked into the framework. It seems this would make it easier. I float that as a suggestion.

We should keep reminding ourselves that we have done some of this before. In this regard, let me pick up on Senator Cummins's point. When a Welsh slate manufacturer was seeking to build a factory in Waterford in the first half of the 20th century, under the Free State, its representative sat down with Waterford Corporation, the then local authority, and agreed a plan for the corporation to build houses for workers. If we do not separate things into departmental silos and instead connect the dots, it makes more sense.

People mentioned Stoneybatter. It is important to remember that Stoneybatter homes are too small but we do not have to use Stoneybatter because there is the likes of Brown's Square or Ceannt Fort. Again, it is just about reminding people that there were times at when we built really beautiful homes to better, more modern space standards. I do not know whether those present have walked around Ceannt Fort recently. Despite the fact that it is really well served with public transport, including a high-capacity bus corridor, and is not that far from the city, the car-parking conditions in the estate are probably among the worst. Every home has two or three cars and you cannot actually walk on the footpath. How do we ensure that where there is car dependency, it is provided for in an innovative way?

I have seen schemes in countries such as Germany and the Netherlands that have combined land use. Instead of having very expensive underground car parks, they have car parks that are slightly settled into the land and above which there are open greens or amenity spaces. I saw a bowling green at one public housing project. This results in the dual use of land without the really expensive cost associated with having to dig down. There are ways of squaring the circle. In Adamstown, there is a genuine challenge because there is half a car-parking space per unit of accommodation. While the area has some new high-frequency public transport, it goes in only one direction, to the city centre. If you work in Blanchardstown or Tallaght, it does not work. I offer this as another example.

Mr. Daithí Hanly, the Dublin city housing architect in the 1950s, is much maligned. Some of the really wonderful inner-urban four- and five-storey duplex flat complexes were designed by him. We often call them the gull wings, because they have what I think are really attractive gull wings. The complexes are all based on really standardised systems. I am not necessarily saying new developments should look exactly like them. Again, these are things we did in certain periods. There is no reason we should not allow three- and four-storey walk-ups. The challenge is that we have to have a housing system that ensures that, as people get older, they will not be left on the third or fourth storey.

In some sense, this conversation is connected with our conversations on densities, compact growth and affordability, because there is a range of factors. Could Mr. Downey, knowing the industry as well as he does because he spends a lot of time with the various providers, answer my next question? I will give him the rest of my time to flesh it out. If we had a Government that was really ambitious and listened to the advice of those who do the work on the ground and the very sensible suggestions by other members of this committee, including Senator Cummins and the Chair, and if it really wanted to have a go at this at pace without in any way compromising standards, including fire safety standards, how much could the industry scale up year on year, given the right sets of policies? I am talking particularly about where the low-carbon building products amount to 60% plus of the final product. How ready would the industry be if we had a Government that was willing to run at this with the right policy approaches, accounting for design, procurement, Part B and so on? How ambitious could we be?