Mr. Aidan Sweeney:

Our issue, as with the quarrying issue of the concrete industry, is that a large part of this stems from the planning and licensing process itself. We should stop looking at infrastructure in isolation and instead look at all the various elements needed to deliver the projects. On the materials side, there are certain elements for which concrete has to be used, but there are others, as with social housing, for which we can consider rolling out modern methods of construction and other building technologies. Part of what is key for us is signalling, with the national development plan, a well-sequenced project pipeline and testing it to determine the ability of the supply chains to service the projects. This has to be factored into the risk element. It is about considering what would potentially be a gain-sharing mechanism for extraordinary circumstances, as in the past owing to inflation affecting construction products, for example. We need to build resilience into the procurement process as well.