10,000 road builders face dole queue

UP to 10,000 road builders face the dole queue in the next 12 months because the Government is abandoning commitments made in its public capital programme and the National Development Plan.

The Civil Engineering Contractors Association has claimed the Government is delaying, deferring or even canceling new roads projects due to the downturn in exchequer finances.

“While the Government is insisting they will continue with investment in the order of €6 billion per year over the next six years, there is absolutely no evidence on the ground that this is happening,” said Pat McCarthy, the association’s president. “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.”

He said at present up to 10,000 construction workers, including machine drivers, pavers, pipe layers, engineers and other construction professionals, are engaged in road building.

“All of these projects will be complete by the middle of 2010,” he said. “After that the workers will be unemployed and the plant and machinery will be moved to eastern Europe. Our highly skilled and highly paid workers and professionals will be lost to the industry and to the Irish economy.

“The Irish road building industry has become extremely efficient and this capacity will be lost to our competitor economies in eastern Europe. In the past, our industry was challenged to meet the needs of the government capital programme. Our member companies responded to this challenge by increasing output, through improving efficiencies and investment in people and plants. This investment in people and in our companies will come to nothing if projects are delayed indefinitely.”

He said consulting engineering companies were already laying off highly qualified staff at an alarming rate and design work was not being carried out on projects contained in the Government’s plan for capital investment.

“It makes a mockery of claims that the Government wants to keep people in employment when we see this happening,” he said.