Mr. Vasileios Madouros:

I will start and maybe my colleagues can come in afterwards. Housing, which depends on addressing broader infrastructure deficits, is one of the most critical issues for people today. From the perspective of the broader economy, these infrastructure deficits are acting as one of the constraints on the supply side of the economy more broadly, as well as having a real impact on people today.

The Deputy asked about productivity, so I will explain why we are focusing on this so much. Construction employment at the moment is around 180,000 people. This is a little bit more than 6% of total employment. If we look at current levels of productivity and these were to remain as they are, to meet the new higher needs for housing, in addition to other investment that is needed in the broader economy, such as retrofitting or some of the broader public infrastructure, we estimate that we would need an increase in construction sector employment of about 30%. This is a substantial increase, which in and of itself, could be difficult to achieve.

We have seen some reallocation of labour within the construction sector from non-housing construction to housing construction. In other words, from office building to housing construction, because we have seen a reduction in the construction of office buildings. There is probably limited scope to see much more of this reallocation going forward. This is why productivity is so important. If we brought productivity up to the European average, it would mean that we could achieve higher output with less labour input. I do not have the precise figures on that and I do not know if my colleagues have them. We can come back to the Deputy with them. This is ultimately one of the reasons we are putting an emphasis on productivity as well as some of the broader factors in terms of housing supply.