Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Whatever about the Department of housing, which IFI is very involved with, we will have the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform at the committee meeting on Thursday, so I am sure Deputy Whitmore will be interested in asking the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, about the investment in the public sector and about making those roles permanent.

We are at the end of the session. It has been hugely informative and educational. I can say that for myself anyway.

We would like to put together a report as quickly as possible because there is that ESB policy piece which has been developed and we would like to influence that. Separate from that, it has been very informative for committee members and for anybody watching. I hope journalists are watching as well. It is certainly one of the really high-quality meetings we have had in this committee. I would like to think it will inform election manifestos - we are in an election year. We are going to have a subsequent session in a few weeks' time. Deputy Whitmore has been instrumental in helping me frame these sessions. We will have a chat and will figure out who we should bring before the committee in the next few weeks. Certainly, what we have discussed today will inform the session we will have then.

I thank all the witnesses for taking the time to come in today. I know some of them have travelled from very far afield; I am not sure who is further, Mr. O'Donnell or Mr. Horton. It really is appreciated that they travelled all the way to discuss this critical issue with us. We are hearing that the situation is quite calamitous at the moment but as I said at the outset, based on the opening statements, we know what to do. It is very important for us, as policymakers, and legislators to listen carefully and do everything we can to set us on the right trajectory in the next few years and decades ahead. With that, I thank the witnesses again.

I adjourn the meeting until the committee's private session at 3.30. p.m. today.