Professor Michael McMahon:

I will say a few comments on that. When we were before the committee a few months ago talking about our recent work on climate, one of the points we made is exactly in line with the Deputy's point. There are questions for all sectors, not just for the agrifood sector but for every commercial and household sector, and for all for us as to how we will confront the challenges of climate transition. One point we made in this regard was that there are decisions to be made, which have yet to be made, about the extent of supports and incentives which will be provided to help sectors, such as the farm sector, to adjust. One reason for doing this is not just to protect a valuable industry in Ireland but to make it resilient to future shocks. One thing we are noticing is that we are experiencing wilder weather. We have moments in which we have warmer winters but then we have snow more often. We have more rain in June. It is a very mixed experience. It is about building resilience in that regard. This links back to some of the earlier comments about incentives for work. Incentives for climate transition must be built into Government policy.

To go back to the point about building resilience to future shocks, and referring back to the Deputy's starting point about dips and rises in the economy and the construction sector, one thing for which we have argued many times before here and which I hope is explicit, or at least sufficiently implicit that people see it, is that having a well-developed national development plan and infrastructure planning plan is precisely so that when - and, as an economist, I am afraid there is a when and not an if - there is a downtown in the future, we do not allow our construction sector to be decimated. The construction sector was decimated in this country and basically flung to the far corners of the world because those were the only places where there was available employment. That is one of the reasons we struggle now; we lost a lot of capacity. Maintaining capacity by having a public investment plan that steps in to fill the gaps when no one else is there would not only give higher value for money but would also help support an economy through these dips. The sad reality of the macro economy is that it goes up and down. Currently, Ireland is in a very nice and envious position relative to most of our European neighbours, but there will be dips in the future. That is where the argument about planning comes in. Doing these things gradually helps builds resilience of the whole economy and not just of the construction sector or the agrifood sector. That is where our argument about prudent budgetary and macro economic management comes in. They go hand in hand in that regard.