Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

I thank the Deputy. I have been thinking a lot about what things could help solve the housing crisis. I have developed this personal acronym, FELIPE. I believe if these issues were resolved, it would go a long way to helping unlock the housing problems of the country. Not all of them are the responsibility of the Government; some are the responsibility of stakeholders. The F stands for development finance, which is crucial. It has to be available for developers to build. E stands for expertise. We need our trades, like carpenters, plumbers and electricians. We do not have enough of them in the country. We are never going to solve the housing crisis when we do not have those skill sets. We all know people who are plumbers and electricians and who, like me, are getting older. There is nobody coming behind them and that is not good. L stands for land, which is needed for housing. I stands for infrastructure, which is crucially important, as the Deputy said. We can have all the land zoned in a country but if there is no infrastructure in place, nothing will happen. P stands for planning and zoning. We had huge delays in the planning system. We have sites in NAMA that have been with An Bord Pleanála for two years and still have not come out the other side. We have the new planning Act which needs to get going and there are huge challenges there. I said at another committee that my experience with developers who are in NAMA is that even if they get planning, there is a high likelihood of it being appealed to An Bord Pleanála or judicially reviewed. It costs a huge amount of money and people go back in again. E stands for engineering, including modern methods of construction. The productivity in the construction sector is one of the lowest across all industries. There are things happening. We funded development of apartments in London which were built with modern methods of construction in 2014. All the sections were built off-site and brought in and assembled very quickly.