Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the report and for their contributions. They are my favourite group of economists.

On the issue of constraints, much of this comes from labour shortages. It is fair to say that many of these interact substantially with the housing crisis. This is because many young people are leaving. It would be interesting to see the latest emigration figures. I do not know if the witnesses know what these are, but I think about 40,000 to 50,000 people were leaving. We have net immigration, but given that there are real labour shortages, would the witnesses accept that it would be fair to say that a good thing to do in the context of these surpluses would, possibly, to use them to address this problem? I refer to using these surpluses to help deal with some of the constraints IFAC has cited. If we invest in the provision of housing, that could keep this talented pool of young people in the country. Would this be considered a prudent way of spending the surpluses we have?