Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party) | Oireachtas source

I understand what Dr. O'Toole is saying but it is not happening. Wages are rising with inflation, but it is coming back full circle. If you are an employer, and the price of something has gone up, you still have a basic 6% margin on your business, regardless. When inflation goes up, you still have the 6% margin and you have to make sure your business can run. To break that cycle, something has to give. What we have done for the past decade has shown that looking to Government agencies to deliver products has not worked. Now we have to go to developer-led infrastructure to deliver sewerage, water and electricity and not fight the likes of planning permissions or take legal cases that hold things up. We should free up stuff that can actually do that, including offshore wind, which can give us free electricity.

The witnesses talked about gas. The price of gas in April was 4.1 cent a unit. May's price was 7.3 cent per unit. We have got to look at the fact that within a month, there was a massive increase. Based on unit costs, we are spiralling out of control. Inflation and inflation of wages goes directly back to fuel exactly what is happening because we do not have the proper infrastructure to do what we need to on productivity.

I will come back to Dr. O'Toole in a while, but I will let others speak.