Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I have a couple of specific questions and some general ones. If the rainy day fund was to be strengthened and used as a countercyclical fund, what level of funding do the witnesses think should be diverted to it? Are we currently putting enough aside? On the rules at EU level which would need to be changed in order for Ireland to have enough flexibility to access a rainy day fund, what is required and needed to do that?

Getting back to some general things about the construction industry, it currently makes up 7% or 8% of GDP. At the time of boom and bust it made up 20%. What level do the witnesses think is a dangerous level to be at? I ask that because a number of questions were asked around property speculators and all the bad words that developers are called which go under that umbrella. We had a very interesting meeting yesterday at which we heard that 86% of landlords in our rental market own one or two properties. In my estimation they are either accidental landlords or it is their retirement fund. It is definitely not for profit, so to speak. A very small percentage of our rental sector is made up of those bigger commercial landlords. Some of the rent legislation we have put through in the last year or so has really helped to steady that market. I refer to the rent pressure zones and further measures. My fear is that some of the legislation coming at us again will push things too far and will affect that 86% heavily, meaning that they might pull out of the market, rather than affecting that very small 3% or 5% that have a greater number of units on the rental market. I fear that will create a problem in the property market.

The other thing is around sustainability in construction, which we talk about all the time, and the skills shortage we have. While we are improving the apprenticeship courses and trying to incentivise people to get back into these trades, one of the problems we have in terms of skill shortages is deciding how to incentivise and encourage people to go into these courses, to incentivise and encourage people who emigrated to come back, and to incentivise and encourage people who stayed, who retrained and who might be ten years in another career to get back into the construction industry with the vast experience and knowledge they would have had. My view, and I would be interested to hear the views of the witnesses, is that they will only come back in when they see sustainability in the construction industry and when they do not see another cycle of boom and bust. At the construction levels we have projected, will the national development plan help sustainability? It gives a roadmap to the 500,000 additional homes that will be required in the next 20 years, to the 660,000 jobs that will need to be filled and to the infrastructure that will be required. For the first time in a long time we have a statutory road map for the next 20 years so that people can actually see the sectors in which they will see growth and will be able to plan their futures in a far more cohesive manner.

A number of questions were asked already. Deputy Jonathan O'Brien mentioned cost rental. He mentioned the pilot project in Enniskerry we are talking about. While cost rental is just one measure of a general stock that will be required within the market, other areas at which I am interested in looking are projects such as rent-to-buy. I know we do not want to get into specific projects or policies but, in simple terms, rent-to-buy, which we piloted years ago, means that local authorities develop schemes of, for example, 50 units. People pay rent at a lower rate, for example €1,000 a month. After four or five years that rent is used as their deposit. Do the witnesses see it as sustainable for the Government to introduce a policy such as that? They may not want to answer that here but I can give them the information around it.