Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The employment level has not dropped this year because there was very strong demand in the categories other than the non-residential sector — I believe there are five categories in total. That is why the figures have held up so well this year, even though the level of construction reduced from 93,000 units to 77,000, and if one considers the second half of the year, it is even lower than 77,000 given the carryover.

The game plan from the Government's point of view involves the enormous injection of expenditure into the capital programme across the headings. This involves several areas. The schools summer works programme which was directly designed for small and medium sized buildings and, in some cases, bigger buildings accounts for almost €300 million. There is also a huge capital programme for first, second and third level education, the roads programme and the infrastructure programme. That investment continues. The challenge for us up to 2013 is to be able to continue to invest that level of resources and to do so without construction inflation such as we experienced in the early years of the last plan in order that we achieve far better value for money. While we cannot control the residential and private sector market, there is the social and affordable housing programme which involves 6,600 units. In all of the other areas of the NDP we are investing huge resources in the construction sector.

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