Mr. Hubert Loftus:

Across the construction sector, whether involving schools or other projects, we are seeing issues impacting construction inflation. These include Covid-19, Brexit, the war in Ukraine and supply chain issues. Therefore, it is a difficult and challenging environment. From the Department’s perspective, we have revised our basic building cost limit, which acts as a guideline and reflects tender prices, etc. We have updated that cost limit by 21% since May 2021. It has gone from €1,640 per sq. m to €1,990 per sq. m. From our perspective, we are anxious to ensure that projects get to the construction stage and that we keep a good, steady flow of projects going to construction all the time. Currently, we have more than 250 projects at the construction stage. We are conscious of getting them through. The current environment in the context of inflation has made that more challenging to achieve. We are conscious and appreciative of the work by the Office of Government Procurement, OGP, in respect of helping to manage the situation.