As I said here previously, the Government has been concerned with the level of capacity in the construction industry. The level of tender price inflation is a little lower than what the Deputy said. It is 12.5%. It is not sustainable at that level, as it would eat into the programme. The Deputy is correct in that analysis.
We established a high level group under the Department of the Environment and Local Government and an action plan will be published shortly by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government to deal specifically with these issues. In the meantime a number of actions have taken place, one of which included actively encouraging foreign contractors to tender for projects under the NDP. We discussed these a number of times last year, but what has been happening since the beginning of the year is encouraging. Quite a number of competitive tenders from foreign companies have come in. A large number of contractors have registered their interest in bidding for large road and rail projects under the NDP. There are a number of large ones in terms of PPPs for the next period. There is the PPP aspect to the Limerick by-pass, the Kilcock-Kinnegad road and Waterford bridge and road. In all of those there is significant interest by the contractors. The Kildare by-pass is due to start one of these days, if it has not already started, and there is also the south-eastern motorway and the port tunnel.
All of these have significant contractors or sub-contractors from abroad. The second point is the recruitment of key building professionals and town planners from abroad. The FÁS jobs Ireland campaign has proved very effective in that area.