Mr. Tim Murnane:

In terms of our fees and our industry, there would be huge concern that the fees are going in the wrong direction. Engineers Ireland will say that a brilliant potential young engineer looking at the career he or she wants, be that as an engineer, an accountant, a lawyer or whatever else, will look at how much he or she will earn now and in 20 years' time. Sadly, engineers are off the page in that regard. We just cannot compete. We have a major issue in terms of making engineering attractive. Deputy Clendennen talked about STEM programmes and so on. Ultimately, bright young people will ask what quality of life they will have in ten years' time and in 20 years' time and whether they will have the same quality of life if they get into engineering as if they get into law, accountancy or IT. Sadly, the answer at the moment is "No". The fees consulting engineers are charging are a fraction of what they should be. If engineering is massively important, and I say as an engineer that it absolutely is, then solving infrastructure and the role we play in it is massively important. Nationally and globally, engineering is an incredibly important profession, but if people get into it, they will earn a fraction of what they would earn if they became lawyers or accountants. That is completely - I am sorry to use the expression - gaga.

Median pricing is a method that perhaps would start to address some of that, but really it is focusing on quality. I gave the examples of the €1 million, the €500,000 and the €1.8 million. My son is 14 and I asked him which he would select. He looked at me and said the €1.8 million was too dear and the €500,000 was too cheap - someone had made a mistake - so he would obviously go for the middle one. Out of the mouths of babes. If that logic stands up for a 14-year-old, it surely would stand up generally.

I am adamant that our fees need to double. If we pay engineers more, they will give more time and focus to design and we will have an exponential impact on value for money because the schemes will be designed much better. The Cathaoirleach asked why there was so much change. Invest in design, give it the appropriate time and we will have much better project outcomes and address the elephant in the room. If we have that bright potential young engineer going off to become a lawyer, we will not solve housing crises or infrastructural crises. Lawyers are not going to design the solutions to these challenges. That is a very personal question and, as a profession, we are really changing to say we have a problem here. In 30 years' time, who will be designing the infrastructure? They will all be lawyers and accountants.