Mr. James Benson:

I thank the Deputy for his comments. I will cover some of the elements of the questions in reverse order. The Deputy referred to prices and the costs in the construction industry. At the outset one can see that the land price is a major issue in that regard. Removing that cost would allow for taking away most of the risk, and one could see a reduced profit margin there. The riskier element being removed so substantially would see a lower margin required by the construction industry.

I contend that there is still quite an inflation in labour costs now, which we have not seen in the last ten years. We have seen increases in the minimum wage rates that were required, and first introduced through the sectoral employment order for the construction sector in 2017. It resulted in a 15% increase in wage rates. That is coupled with an increase on 1 October of a further 2.7%, which will increase again next year by a further 2.7%. That element of costs is continually creeping up. When we look at the hard costs of a build, to comply with the regulations currently, I estimate that over the past four years there has been an increase in costs of up to €20,000 to comply with such regulations as parts L and F and what is coming down the line for part B and changes to part C. There are numerous increases involved there. There is the requirement to deliver a far superior product, which was the case even at the end of the recession around 2011. Given some of these elements, even if the land costs are taken away, we might see a question around competitive or tender prices on it.

The Deputy referred to breaking up the lots. I would agree. There is huge concern from the bulk of the SME companies that make up the majority of the construction industry, that there would be some sort of mechanism put in place through the LDA for an allotment and for those licences to be broken up so it would not just be whole lots given off, so there would be no disadvantage to the industry.

The Deputy also spoke of securing a blended mix of tenure within the communities and constituencies. This will be key to the set up of the agency. I will now close off from our own side again, which echo the thoughts and concerns of the Deputy around CPO powers. We addressed that in our opening statement. There will be a critical need for this to happen in a speedy manner to ensure that developments can happen as soon as possible. Even looking down from projections, and even with the legislation going through, we could be looking at 2021 before we start to see shovels in the ground and this moving on. We are looking at needing up to 45,000 units to be delivered by 2024. This is only a five-year period. Getting up productivity to that point will be a challenge. Everything that can be done in a speedy manner to aid that, both fairly and competitively, would be encouraged.