Mr. Shane Dempsey:

Yes, it is the report I mentioned earlier. It says that in many cases Ireland, through legislation, policy statements and strategies has opted to go beyond the requirement specified by the EU and adopt extremely ambitious targets. I think somebody used the phrase "gold-plated" earlier. In Ireland, we tend to go above and beyond what is required. I think there is a move across the EU, and as we heard in the budget statements, to challenge that mindset. I will put out something stark that relates to all the questions by giving members a thought experiment. If there were two projects on the table here tomorrow, one public sector and one private sector, all things being equal, due to the nature of the risk involved in the public sector project the industry will select the private sector project. Companies will look at their profile of projects and be concerned if there are too many public sector projects because of the last man standing and legal situation. To the Deputy's point about whether we can get projects in around the country, first we need to look at public sector projects and what can be done to make them attractive. Again, this is ISME, as the representative of the association saying this, but it is also stated in this report that the number of companies across the different design professions applying and tendering for public sector projects is dropping. Furthermore, there is plenty of private sector work coming down the line. It really is a huge challenge. As Mr. Murnane said, we want to deliver the promises in the NDP and the NPF, but if the profile is too risky, we cannot get insurance to cover it, we cannot deliver these projects, we cannot hire and we cannot invest in technologies and digitalisation. Part of the certainty in the pipeline and for careers is knowing that we can actually take on these jobs and deliver for Ireland.