Mr. Tom Parlon:

Others can intervene but I will start with the last question. As the president stated, the industry is estimated to be worth approximately €8.6 billion this year, some 6% of GDP. It was unsustainable at 23%, or €38 billion, of GDP. In other countries, 10% to 12% is normal. In Ireland, that would be approximately €16 billion. Our figures suggest that a €1 billion investment in infrastructure would employ 10,000 people. As such, an extra €8 billion would employ 80,000 more people in the industry. We can support these figures. We carried out a report with the Construction Industry Council, chartered surveyors, engineers and other players.

The children's hospital and Grangegorman projects would be worth €400 million or €500 million each.

Approximately 500 or 600 people would be employed, probably for more than a two year period. It is a very substantial work opportunity. I understand that tendering is shortly going out for the design team for the children's hospital which means that construction is probably two years down the road, a long wait. There are some other big projects in the pipeline. The Grangegorman project has begun and some of the work is underway, with talk of a €300 million investment over a number of years. I was at the site recently and the team involved is very keen that local people in the general Dublin 7 area should have an opportunity of working on that site. That is something we would support.

In terms of the sustainable base, any alteration is an improvement on the current position. The industry is starved for work and money is very scare. We appreciate the pressure on the Exchequer and the attempts that will be made in the coming budget to reduce the deficit even further. We know about the efforts going on elsewhere to try to reduce the public sector pay bill, etc., but it does take money to get construction going. For the €1 billion that is spent, almost half comes back within a year in Exchequer returns, from PAYE, PRSI or VAT and everything else that goes on in the economy. When we had the REA, whose rates will prevail for quite some time, a typical construction worked paid €18,000 per year in PAYE and PRSI. If this worker signs on the dole, depending on his family circumstances, he will draw down at least that amount so there is a double whammy. There is a difference of about €36,000 between the person signing on and the person in the work situation.

Senator Quinn mentioned red tape. From our point of view, the CIF represents the compliant, fully registered contractors who are up to speed on all the different areas, with their expertise, health and safety rules, accounts departments and so on. It is galling, especially when one goes around the country, if somebody says, "Look, Tom, if you want to be guaranteed not to win a tender, be fully compliant". If it costs a bit extra red tape, or if the extra red tape is the disincentive for some of those people working under the radar to be pushed out of business, or not to qualify, we can live with that.

I wonder if there is a better system. I have spoken with Deputy Áine Collins previously, and we have had a great deal of contact with Senator Quinn. We are very keen to be as flexible as possible in our pre-budget submission. We were concerned about the great detail we supplied last year, and all the pages and material to which nobody pays any notice. Even if we have only two pages this year we want to come up with material in order that the Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform will say we have a good idea, that they can begin to get some economic growth out of it and get more people off the live register. We are in that space and are prepared to talk to anybody about it. We have a great deal of practical experience on our side in terms of how we got to where we are.

I refer to apprentices. Mr. Michael Stone represents the mechanical and electrical contractors who still have a lot of work, in particular in the foreign direct investment sector. Some of these companies currently have more than 200 apprentices. Across the board in the other skills, however, in plumbing, carpentry, stone masonry and blocklaying, there is scarcely anybody. I believe there is one person in the entire country in apprenticeship as a tiler. So that is an issue.

The changeover of FÁS to SOLAS is taking a very long time. We are promised it will happen fairly soon and we know a new board will be appointed for SOLAS. We have been advised we will be asked to nominate a director and we want to be involved in that. A review of apprenticeships is taking place at present under a chairman and we are represented on that review. If we had a huge upswing in the morning there could be a skills shortage in no time. Yet there is a vast number of young males on the dole. We had that discussion before coming into the committee, namely, as to how, in our pre-budget submission we could come up with a suggestion on how people could be encouraged or even coerced into being involved in taking up a trade, instead of just signing on and not ending up with anything after two years. Those are my points.