Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

To the Deputy's first point, one piece of work we are doing with the infrastructure task force in the division is on what changes we can make to yield better delivery. Different people have ideas about how critical infrastructure would be labelled, for example. The outworking of our barriers to infrastructure report will set that out. We have reference to the public investment Act in the programme for Government. That is a more medium-term piece of work. What I am prioritising now is how we move that critical infrastructure quickly. A lot of that is within our control. Some of the process there does not have a legislative barrier. It is very much process that is getting in the way of delivery. We can move things with decisions we take in the outworking of the barriers to infrastructure report.

Human capital is a key part of the work of the Department. We have a construction sector working group focused on building capability across apprenticeships, third level institutions and a focus on modern methods of construction to improve the productivity of the construction sector in particular. We know that Ireland can do a lot more to drive increased productivity and that will be important as we place more capital into infrastructure overall. We need to get better use out of the overall workforce that exists. That is also a key part of the work we are doing.