Dr. Kieran McQuinn:

We are working on a paper at the moment looking at the whole issue of capacity constraints and the construction sector so hopefully we will have something published on that fairly soon. It goes into many of the issues Deputy Farrell talks about, in terms of alternative forms of construction, modular construction or something else, and whether or not significant savings could be achieved through that and other avenues of approach. That is something specific to the construction sector in terms of achieving the residential unit targets that have been set out.

In terms of the metro project itself, I do not have anything particular to say about it apart from saying there are lessons to be learnt in this country when it comes to expenditure on very large capital projects. We have seen it with the children's hospital and the degree to which those costs have escalated, far and beyond what they were originally thought to be. Sometimes that happens and there are legitimate reasons people do not budget.

Clearly in the present circumstances with inflationary pressures as strong as they are, the danger is that whatever we bid in as likely prices for key inputs and costs going forward, they are going to face significant inflationary pressures. It is not altogether apparent that we are going to be able to be able to accurately forecast those. Even setting those aside, there are lessons to be learned in how we spend on particularly large projects in this country. When we are talking about contributing huge, significantly large amounts of public funds on these projects, it is absolutely essential we get value for money on them and ensure we do not have runaway costs that end up consuming very significant resources over time.