Dr. Tom McDonnell:

That is right. Completing the spokes from Dublin to Sligo, Galway, Limerick, Cork, Waterford and then linking Waterford and Cork and around again will be important. Whether that should outrank other areas of need is something that will come down to a cost-benefit analysis. However, any such analysis will invariably show that something done in Dublin will have a better cost benefit because more people live there. If we are interested in regional development, we have to look beyond that and look at what the west needs.

The west needs transport infrastructure. Again, I emphasise we are not just talking about roads but also about public transport infrastructure within Cork, Limerick and Galway. Galway city, in particular, has a terrible traffic problem. It is worse than Dublin in many ways.

As for the builders' strike, it is somewhat perplexing. The first item one would look to is the dysfunction within the banking sector whereby it is impossible to borrow. Certainly, Ireland fares very poorly in international metrics regarding the quality of the banking system and the availability of credit. However, such is the scale of the issue at present that, to refer to Patricia King's initial comments, we have an emergency and the State will have to take on a far more substantial role. My colleagues are working on a paper, which is currently out for external review, so I do not wish to comment too much to pre-empt that, but it is possible to finance this within the public sector, although, of course, not the entirety of the annual need. To do so will require up to €2 billion per year to generate 10,000 housing units. My expectation is that what we are seeing is a lag and that the evident demand that exists, particularly in Dublin, will be met with increasing private sector supply. With house prices continuously increasing it simply makes more sense to do so. I anticipate that private sector building will increase, and also on the commercial side.

There is a competitiveness aspect to this as well. Rising rents, mortgages and so forth will have to be reflected ultimately in increasing wages just to stand still, and obviously there is a competitiveness aspect to that. Of course, if we want to get those 50,000 London jobs, for which we, Paris, Frankfurt, Luxembourg and other places are fighting, that means there must be a quality of life within the city. That means we must deal with the housing so the State is essentially building the place to which they can come, "Field of Dreams" style. In addition, Patricia King has repeatedly referred to the child care issue. That is a major issue for quality of life in Dublin as well.

The State must take a far more substantial role, and the envelope that has been identified and suggested by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in terms of capital needs is clearly insufficient out to 2020.