Construction company insolvencies fall by third

The number of construction companies to go out of business has halved since 2008, with total insolvencies falling by a third in 12 months, latest figures show.

Details published by credit risk analyst Vision-net for February 2014 confirm 14% of all company failures this month involved those in the recession-hit building sector.

At the end of the Celtic Tiger era, in February 2008, construction firms made up 30% of all insolvencies across the country. The drop means the number of these firms to go out of business this month is half that at the start of the recession.

According to the official figures, the sector has also seen a year-on-year drop of 7.5%, with 21.5% of all insolvencies relating to construction firms in February 2013.

There has also been a 31% overall drop in the number of insolvencies in just 12 months, with 93 firms going out of business this month compared with 135 this time last year.

Almost 40% of the firms involved were based in Dublin, with 15.1% and 6.5% in Cork and Galway respectively.

Wholesale and retail companies accounted for one in every five of the latest cases, with “professional services” taking up a further 17.2%.

According to the monthly update, there has been a 5.6% reduction in the number of start-up businesses since the end of January compared with the same period last year, representing a fall of 3,301 new firms to 3,116.