'Jobs at risk' because of road-building slowdown

Up to 10,000 jobs will be lost in the construction industry over the coming year because of a slowdown in road building, contractors claimed today.

The Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) accused the Government of effectively winding down the programme for new national and secondary routes.

CECA president Pat McCarthy said highly qualified and experienced workers are already being laid off at an alarming rate.

“At present up to 10,000 construction workers including machine drivers, pavers, pipe-layers, engineers and other construction professionals are engaged in road building,” he said.

“All of these projects will be complete by the middle of 2010.

“Following this the workers will be unemployed and the plant and machinery will be moved to Eastern Europe.”

Contractors claimed the industry will shift to competing economies in Eastern Europe where there is still business in road-building projects.

Mr McCarthy said a number of promised new national roads had been shelved, including:

:: the “Atlantic Corridor” from Sligo to Waterford.

:: the completion of the N11 from Dublin to Wexford.

:: the completion of the N3 to Cavan.

Other smaller upgrade projects like the N60 Castlebar to Athlone, the N80 Enniscorthy to Portlaoise as well as peninsular routes in Cork, Kerry, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal have been postponed, according to the CECA president.

“While the Government is insisting they will continue with investment in the order of €6bn per year over the next six years, there is absolutely no evidence on the ground that this is happening,” he said.

“All of the evidence suggests that government capital expenditure is being curtailed to that required by existing contractual commitments and that the projects required for an ongoing programme are not being started.

“In effect, the public capital programme is being wound down and is grinding to a halt.”

Mr McCarthy claimed the postponement of projects made a mockery of claims the Government wanted to keep people in employment during the recession.

“Even if the Government announces that they are to proceed with specific projects, there will be a significant time lag between the design phase and the construction phase, which will result in significant job losses for our members,” he said.