Dr. Eddie Casey:

I might add that this is a great question that goes to the heart of what we are saying about avoiding this pattern of repeating that cycle, exactly as the Deputy is saying. In the 2000s, public investment was ramped up to incredibly high levels and then had to be halved over a small period, only to see mass migration of construction workers out of Ireland and a very difficult period afterwards when we were struggling to get that capacity back. We are getting to that point now where we can again have a thriving construction sector. What we do not want to do is repeat the exact same pattern. We do not want to go too far too quickly and see us have to reverse capital spending again at a point in the future. That is why the spending rule is so important, in our view. We think this has to be done in a sustainable way, with planning for capital spending, and not in a way where there is a rollercoaster of doing too much and then nothing, with capacity washed out of the sector.

That seems to have exacerbated some of the problems in investment. We see less productivity in Irish construction compared with other countries, which might be a feature of what we saw with people having to leave the sector, not innovating and not putting money into research and development and capital initiatives, using new technologies and the like. We also see fewer young people going into the sector. These are problems and features of that history, and this is exactly what the rule should do.

Another clever aspect of this line of argument is that if we view the national development plan as a list, there is nothing to say we cannot reprioritise over the course of a cycle. If we decide there are huge capacity constraints and if it is hard to find labour and workers, we could just redirect the investment towards the projects that have less of a requirement for workers. We would basically be importing technology to where it is more import intensive, more capital intensive and less reliant on workers, and that would help avoid high-inflation outcomes.