Most building firms ‘not building’

THREE out of four Irish construction companies are not building houses, three out of 10 do not expect to complete a single house this year and half do not expect to restart on sites until next year, a survey has found.

The Merrion Stockbrokers Irish Housebuilder Survey authors, Killian Jones and John Mattimoe, remain cautious on whether the back end of 2010 will prove to be the turning point of the housing downturn.

“We suspect it will more likely be 2011 at the earliest,” they said in their latest report published yesterday.