Máire Devine (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Madouros for his presentation. There is a lot to it so I will just concentrate on construction of housing, which is the biggest challenge facing us in the country. The article today in The Irish Times gives data from AIB showing that the volume of homebuilding in Ireland decreased again in June, for the second month in a row. This is the fastest rate of decline in 18 months. The Government is likely to fail to achieve its goal of 41,000 new home completions this year. My concern is not only for the new build construction for private renters and buyers but also the funding for regeneration of social housing. In my constituency, Dublin South Central, this is taking decades per project.

Another issue is the repair and maintenance of social homes, including the voids. On the funding for the tenant in situ purchases, people in Dublin South Central are waiting at least 15 years on the council's housing list before they get an offer. This shows how desperate the situation is.

I want to ask about housing construction in Ireland based on the quarterly budget of the Central Bank. Its quarterly budget states:

Housing investment, while expected to increase gradually, will likely remain insufficient to bridge the gap between supply and estimated demand in that market. The outlook is particularly sensitive to how effective tariff rates evolve ...

Apprenticeship skilled construction labour remains very low across the country. Recently, I think there were 500 apprenticeships in the entire year, which is pretty dismal. The increasing demand for labour seems to indicate that inward migration would be needed, but this requires places for those workers to live. Higher levels of labour will also lead to higher inflationary pressures. As a State, it seems that we must turn to improving construction sector productivity, as Ireland's is the second lowest across comparable European countries, according to box 1 in the bank's figures.

The bank recommends the greater adoption of modern methods of construction, which rely less on on-site labour but more on off-site manufacturing processes and economies of scale. That sector's productivity is low compared to other countries and that lower productivity leads to higher unit labour costs. Will Mr. Madouros detail how incremental increases in Ireland's real output per hours worked would correspond with real capital stock per employed person? In other words, what would the greater construction unit output per year would be if we used the modern methods of construction to increase our productivity point by point to catch up with other comparable EU countries?