Dr. Robert Kelly:

I can pick up the second tier and then pass on to colleagues from the ESRI.

On the first home scheme, ultimately, we need to take a step back and ask what the aim of the policy is. What I see in the first home scheme is a mix of affordability but it is also to generate supply to mitigate some of the price pressures. If that is the aim of the scheme, extending it to second-hand homes runs the risk you will increase the price pressure side of it. If the first home scheme is framed around giving access to housing - the Cathaoirleach described Longford and how there is no new housing there and maybe there are particular issues - it depends ultimately what the aim of the policy is. We need to be careful that if policies are aimed at generating supply, we make sure that is what they are aimed at doing. If they are aimed at giving cohorts, such as individuals under a certain income threshold, preferential treatment to access to home ownership, then it is different and we are willing to accept some price pressure trade-off. It is an aim-of-policy question. As I see the first home scheme, it is tackling the shortage.

On the modern construction methods, I completely agree. Probably the easiest thing we could do quickly is incentivise more productive use of modern methods and reduce our labour supply pressures. I do not want to get prescriptive in terms of policy but we could tie any supply-side incentives we do to using these modern construction methods. If we are going to do waivers for X, Y and Z, we could say it is conditional upon a certain type of fabrication and so on. It is possible to tie these and create the right incentives.