City manager vows to root out rogue contractors working on public projects

CORK’S city manager vowed last night to root out rogue contractors working on public projects who were found to be flouting agreed rates and conditions.

Joe Gavin made his comments after it emerged that a sub-contractor working on the city council’s €7 million Sunvalley Drive refurbishment project, which started yesterday, was non-compliant on certain conditions of employment.

The company, which was engaged by main contractors, JF Supple and Company, has been withdrawn from the project.

It is the third time in the last two years that the council has taken action on non-compliant sub-contractors on public projects, Mr Gavin said.

Almost 60 masons and plasterers staged a protest outside City Hall last night, organised by the Building and Allied Trade Union (BATU) and the Operative Plasterers and Allied Trades’ Society of Ireland (OPATSI), to highlight what they said was widespread abuse of building workers on public and private building sites.

OPATSI Cork branch secretary, Billy Curtin, said public contracts are being awarded by the council to private contractors, most of whom are not genuine contractors adhering to the Registered Employment Agreement (REA) on pensions, rates of pay and union membership.

“The agreed hourly rate is €17.70. We know of some people who are employing people for half that rate,” he said.

BATU spokesman, Jim Fahy, accused the council of washing its hands of its obligations to ensure sub-contractors were compliant.

Mr Gavin told a council meeting, watched from the public gallery by up to 20 protestors, that council contract documents required that conditions of employment for all employees on sites, whether employed by the main contractor or sub-contractors, comply with the relevant legislation.