James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

The general construction inflation is known and is out there. For particular housing projects, it varies quite substantially depending on the nature of the scheme, its location, the nature of the contracts. How much of a particular project is actually inflation would always be an exceptionally difficult thing to judge. Let us say we agree a contract with, for example, an AHB that has come in and priced a project for the delivery of 300 properties, and it says how much is needed from the Department to deliver that.

We need to account for how much of it in each particular year is inflation or a profit for whatever person is delivering it. It would be very difficult to microanalyse any contract assigned to this degree or level. We do know the national inflation that happens in construction and we are always very conscious of it.