Engineering profession told to get competitive

ADVERTISING restrictions, lack of fee competition and methods of selecting members using age as a criteria must be halted to make the engineering profession more competitive, a State watchdog said yesterday.

A report by the Competition Authority of Ireland (CAI) found several rules and practices of Ireland’s two main professional engineering bodies, the Association of Consulting Engineers of Ireland (ACEI) and the Institution of Engineers of Ireland (IEI) have the potential to restrict competition.

These relate to some aspects of the membership criteria for the ACEI, several rules governing the competitive conduct of members of both the IEI and the ACEI, as well as statements published by the ACEI regarding fees, competition between members and methods for selection.