Dr. Kieran McQuinn:

I thank the Deputies. There were a number of points there, so I will try to tie it all together. Dr. Keane can jump in if she wants to add something. There are a couple of points to draw out. The idea of the special reserve fund and the reason we think it is a good idea is that it is specifically there to split out the revenues between what is sustainable going forward and, hence, can be potentially used in day-to-day current expenditure, and what is regarded as being windfall, and therefore not sustainable. The proposal is that a certain chunk of the non-sustainable windfall receipts would be used for pension purposes. I think that is a good idea, given the issue of pensions that is coming down the track. A certain amount would be reserved essentially for capital investment, particularly in projects that would not have had investment earmarked over the last number of years for all sorts of reasons, including constraints that made us feel they were not possible, but which may be going forward, given we have the presence of this fund.

I refer in particular to projects that are more capital-intensive. There is no doubt that we have labour constraints at present in the economy. There are ways and means by which we can try to get around them but there are labour constraints and a very low unemployment rate. If we try to put too much money into the economy at a time when we have a low unemployment rate, there is a danger that it will just cause inflationary pressures. That is why I think some of the projects we might envisage funding from the reserve fund for investment purposes would be more capital-orientated or capital-intensive in nature. For instance - I am not saying I am an expert in this - one project is about onshoring wind energy, which would require sizeable investment in ports to develop the capacity and the resources there. That is one possible opportunity.

The other point it is important to mention is that, apart from the reserve fund, there are significant funds that are already pledged, for instance in terms of the national development plan going forward. These are coming from the normal budgetary returns. It may well be that because of higher interest rates, particularly in the case of housing, we may not meet the targets. Because of the changing demographics we may need to top up that fund if we are to achieve the same outcomes, even allowing for any planning issues, which I will talk about in a minute. It may well be that we could possibly use the fund to top up the national development plan with a view to trying to hit the targets in the plan, given that the plan is being revised at present because of the additional demographic pressures and trends that exist. That is another possibility in terms of using it.

I fully agree with what the Deputy is saying in terms of bottlenecks. We are doing a project at present for the shared island unit, which we hope to have it published before Christmas, in which we are looking at housing supply in the Republic compared with housing supply in Northern Ireland and across the rest of the UK housing markets, in England, Scotland and Wales. We are delving into that issue quite a bit, looking at differences across planning, zoning and regulatory issues. There is no doubt that there are sizeable issues around bottlenecks and planning issues there. They are not just particular to us here in Ireland but are observed across the UK as well. There are many complaints in the UK. What is more interesting is that there seems to be a comparison between ourselves in Ireland, the UK and then the rest of Europe in how some of these issues are dealt with. Clearly some of the bottlenecks can be addressed without any sizeable increase in funding. It is more a case of learning from best practice elsewhere, possibly increasing resources in places like An Bord Pleanála and dealing with certain other legal issues around appeals and that. One issue which jumps out from the work we have done is that many people point to the Scottish model of how development plans are formulated. The point they make is that there is quite an extensive process at the outset of development plans to try to engage with local communities.