Dr. Ciaran Byrne:

I will deal with the first couple of questions. On the spread of the one-stop shops, of the 19 companies, many of them have a national footprint and will be doing work right across the country. A number of them are also tied in to the large utility providers so, while they are separate companies in their own right, they are very much linked to utility providers and have that kind of national spread as well. The current target for OSS registration is approximately 20 for this year and we will be growing it further from there. As was mentioned in the opening remarks, from the point of view of OSSs, we are looking for relatively large companies that have the capacity and capability to deliver at scale.

The model for many of the one-stop shops, OSSs, will be that they will work very closely with the middle-sized and smaller contractors. The OSSs will be responsible for quality and project management delivery. They will work with the local contractors. That will allow them to enforce and support the national spread of OSSs and retrofit works. We believe we are in a reasonably good place in that regard.

I will comment on the supply chain before handing over to my colleague, Mr. O'Mahony, who has very much led on the matter. We are very much cognisant of the supply chain. We have done a lot of work on quantity surveying the OSSs and building in inflation in respect of the grant schemes. We are about six weeks into the war in Ukraine, which has supercharged things. Last year was a very difficult year for the supply chain. The committee will recall Ever Given, the ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal. That gave rise to significant global supply chain issues. We are seeing some restrictions on or some issues with the scheme, particularly in the context of the lead times for the likes of windows and doors. I ask my colleague, Mr. O'Mahony, to comment a little further on the supply chain.