James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I studied accounting for my leaving cert and then studied mathematics as an undergraduate. Perhaps my focus on numbers has been unfortunate in recent days. Perhaps there is a bigger picture than the pure mathematical realities, something I am learning.

Again I agree with the Deputy. The Minister of State, Deputy Harkin, and I recently launched a subset of the overall system but a really strong exemplar of what can work well - the modern methods of construction pathway. Recently in Mount Lucas, along with the Minister, Deputy Burke, and the Minister, Deputy Browne, the Minister of State, Deputy Harkin, and I launched a modern methods of construction skills portal and pathway.

Obviously, as a country, we have a significant housing challenge and modern methods of construction are one way we can get a productivity dividend. We can build more houses with fewer materials, fewer costs and less labour if we correctly deploy the technologies and modern methods involved. We need to get adoption and that skills roll-out into industry. We have put a portal in place that allows students, developers, craftworkers and people from all across the industry to find their way through and come out the far side. It is worth looking at the MMC portal. If we can do that at scale across the rest of the sector, we will have done some useful work.

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