Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 4 December 2025
266. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment the methodology used by his Department to assess value-for-money in the allocation of more than €6.5 million under the Built to Innovate programme for residential construction productivity, including the performance criteria applied to participating firms and the evidence of productivity gains recorded to date. [68901/25]
View answerEnterprise Ireland's Built to Innovate programme of supports to the domestic residential construction sector offers different grant aid packages, subject to eligibility, across four areas:
• The Digital package supports the implementation of Industry 4.0, digitally enabled Lean systems to develop offsite manufacturing capability to increase output and produce more complex, higher value products.
• The Lean construction grant package is designed to deliver higher levels of on time and on budget project delivery, through implementing Lean methodologies onsite and the increased use of offsite and near site production.
• The Research & Innovation grant package is designed to support the development of products that will increase Pre-Manufactured Value (PMV), and reduce the embodied carbon, in residential construction.
• Finally, through the Sustainability package, Enterprise Ireland can support clients on their journey to sustainability through targeted grants that enable them to develop high impact carbon reduction plans.
Enterprise Ireland considers some, or all, of the following productivity metrics in the methodology for evaluating significant Built To Innovate productivity funding applications:
reduced construction time and improved quality, including the reduction of snag lists,
projected growth in residential unit output from a base year (usually the last full financial year) to 3 years full financial years from that base year,
revenue growth per FTE employee on a similar timeline,
specific projected productivity improvements and additional cost savings through waste reduction (addressing the 8 wastes addressed in Lean projects).
Production time and quality are key Built To Innovate productivity measures, and they are commonly used in several industrial sectors. These measures are easily quantified, and they are indicators of production efficiency throughout the production cycle.
Sales per employee are influenced by several factors such as, the product mix and the level of outsourcing. Therefore, labour productivity is considered as a more general Built To Innovate measure. For example, factory systems on the site will drive site productivity through subcontractors, but these systems may not reduce the main contractor's site labour. Also, using increased offsite will reduce site labour, but increased offsite can be more costly, if sufficient productivity gains cannot be achieved in the factory.
From March 2022 to June 2025, total Built To Innovate grants of €6.8m were approved for 45 companies. These companies included builder developers, main contractors, subcontractors, design teams and offsite manufacturers. On receipt of final claims from firms for Built To Innovate grants, productivity improvements are assessed.
