Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Last year, at the heart of a housing and rental crisis, local authorities built only 2,022 homes. A report entitled, Construction Sector Performance and Prospects 2019, illustrates that there is poor productivity in that sector. It contains an analysis of recovery of other sectors in the domestic economy and showed how far behind the construction sector is in terms of productivity and recovery. The Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, in its analysis earlier this year, stated that there is a widespread discrepancy in regard to subcontractors and agency workers, with multiple parties working to different schedules and budgets, fragmented decision-making and often incompatible work processes, and ill-defined risk transfer mechanisms. There seems to be a dysfunction in construction, although that has nothing to do with the hard work being done by workers. Nonetheless, we need better models. I have two direct questions for the Taoiseach. Will he and his Government continue to depend on ad hoc workers and subcontractors to build at a time of national crisis or will he ask local authorities to build directly? When does the Government intend to restore the capacity to local government to undertake direct build, which used to be a feature of local authority housebuilding for decades?

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