Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 27 May 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Challenges Relating to the Delivery of Housing: Discussion (Resumed)
2:00 am
Dr. Conor O'Toole:
I might let Dr. Egan come in on this because he has done some research on this topic. Regarding the labour market in Ireland, we have a 4% unemployment rate. We are at capacity. We are at full employment. There is little to no slack in the labour market to expand. There are two ways to do it. Inward migration is a channel that can be used to alleviate short-term labour constraints. That may be possible in the construction sector. The second way, which we spoke about earlier, is to increase the output per worker, using productivity-enhancing measures to try to get over the labour shortage. That could involve using modern methods of construction like prefabrication.