John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Our visitors are very welcome. This is my first opportunity to question the chamber. I have attended several of its functions and meetings with Mr. McGibney and Mr. Sharpe and others, where we have been questioned so it is nice to have the shoe on the other foot or to make some comments.

I have family connections with Dingle, which is a very successful tourist town. Someone from there told me recently that they have an accommodation issue for people who come to work there, particularly seasonal workers. It would be regarded as an average size town. It is not just a Dublin issue.

We have tabled a Private Members' motion for tomorrow evening on traffic congestion in Dublin. It is interesting to see the feedback on that. Part of the aim of the motion is to get the heads of people in Dublin and the commuter counties around the fact that there is no silver or magic bullet. It will be at least 2027 before the major infrastructural projects we are talking about will be in place, if we are lucky, yet the witnesses know that the answer to a question I tabled to the Minister on the cost of congestion to the city, according to the CSO, the National Transport Authority, NTA, and modelling systems, was €350 million per annum. That is estimated to rise to €2 billion per annum by 2033. The amount of infrastructure that could be built with €2 billion per annum is substantial.

I have not heard the phrase "real economy" used for a while. I am hoping Ms Burke used it unconsciously. I really dislike it because it implies that nobody else is doing anything economically meaningful unless they own a business that employs people and produces or manufactures something. I would argue that teachers educate the people who populate her "real economy". Doctors and nurses care for them and make them well so that they can turn up for work in her "real economy" and public servants keep the whole machinery of the "real economy" moving. The real economy is everybody. It is not just business and everybody played some kind of part in the recovery.

I am aware that business took the biggest hit in employment numbers and profits, suffered much damage and has recovered. I am also aware that tourism, which is very much an understated asset in this country, probably proved to be the most resilient product that Dublin had to offer during that time, and withstood many pressures that came from the crash. In spite of that we invest very little in research and development on it as a State, compared to cities elsewhere, and I would like to hear what the chamber thinks of that.

On high-density development, the witnesses know that there used to be double-decker or triple-decker houses in the United States. The suburbs can offer potential for sustainable high-density development, but people have to be led. People like Mr. Dermot Bannon, the architect, are critical in that because they are trusted figures in the public eye. It feels like they are late to the debate because it is a matter that I had considered a long time ago as a politician, but their entry to the debate is important because people trust them. Mr. Dermot Bannon recently repeated what the witnesses were saying, that Dublin is not just like a doughnut, but like a saucer, where the density gets higher the farther out one goes. I think the witnesses from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce mentioned Copenhagen. We have 25% of the density within the boundary of the M50 that Copenhagen would fit in that space. That is good news too because it means we have much capacity there.

Rathmines is full of derelict bedsits too. That is the only downside of it. The reaction to two previous Governments trying to improve standards in bedsits was that the whole thing shut down. I take the witnesses' point about densities, but there is much dereliction there and much unused accommodation. Several Governments and city councils have tried to incentivise the re-use of those, and it has been really difficult to do that.

Major infrastructural projects are a decade away and the Minister, the Government and the NTA have told us that, without ever asking us or consulting with the public; we do not have a choice now but to accept that public transport is the only way to alleviate future traffic gridlock. What steps do the witnesses envisage may be necessary during that decade in traffic demand management and in entry and access to the city from the commuter belt? Some 70% of employees in Wicklow come to the city. Some 40% of Kildare working people come to Dublin. That will keep growing. I imagine some serious thinking will need to be done in a proactive way, or we are going to have to react in a crisis at some stage down the road.

Five of the top eight tech companies are based here in the city and I met one of the lead people from one of them. I am always fascinated that this company's major selling point is that it manages data. It has a huge amount of expertise in the data management area. We have a huge amount of expertise in university faculties. The State has invested hundreds of millions of euro in this over the years, in transport, climate change and other areas. Does anyone ever ask these bodies to get involved in designing solutions for Dublin? Have any of the tech companies ever been approached, whether by Dublin City Council or the NTA, to see if they have something to offer with regard to providing solutions and managing data, at which these companies are experts? Do the witnesses have a view on that?