Mr. John McCarthy:

Construction industry capacity was an issue that was recognised and flagged when the new national development plan was being published because the issue is in the construction industry generally, that is, not only residential construction but commercial and civil as well. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has established a group with relevant Departments, the Construction Industry Federation and others to look at this and to engage with the likes of SOLAS on apprenticeships and skills but also to engage with the construction industry on modern methods of construction and to determine whether the industry is engaging with those to the extent that it needs to.

In terms of attracting new workers, from an overall perspective one would nearly prefer people already in the country to be upskilled into the construction industry. Attracting more people into the country will result in an increased demand for housing. I am not saying we will get all the skills we need from within our own space but efforts are being made. That is why the likes of SOLAS and activation measures by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection have to be an important part of the solution as well.

On the issue of going from a field being zoned to the appearance of houses, Deputy Catherine Murphy referred earlier to the one-stage approval process. I am talking purely about social housing projects. I will come to private ones in a minute. We have a four-stage approval process for the bigger type social housing projects that do not come within the limits of the one-stage process. That four-stage process is borne out of the public spending code and the capital works management framework the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has in place for capital projects generally.

I am sure most of the members are blue in the face, as I am blue in the face, from hearing about the four-stage approval process and projects bouncing backwards and forwards. To try to deal with this, we sat down with the local government system and set timelines for each stage of the process. We benchmarked getting from the first idea of a project to getting on site with comparable private sector delivery. It is as good as what can be delivered in the private sector at 59 weeks. People speak about it as 59 weeks to get approval but it is 59 weeks to do the design, get through the Part VIII process with the local authority, do the procurement and do all of the work on assessments at various stages of the process. If we look at how the 59 weeks break down, approximately 45 weeks involve work that the local authorities are required to do at various stages.