100,000 in construction ‘face dole’ without stimulus package

CHARTERED surveyors have called for massive government investment in schools, hospitals and other public building as the bulk of the country’s majorinfrastructural projects should be completed by mid-2010, putting another 100,000 construction workers on the dole.

According to Ken Cribbin, president of the Society of Chartered Surveyors (ISCS), a stimulus package would help stem the rise in unemployment which has seen the number of employed surveyors fall by 12.5%.

Unemployment among graduate surveyors is 27% and expected to rise to 40% by the year end, according to an ISCS survey.

“Due to the lack of new orders over the past year, construction output volumes are forecast to decline by 52.5%, which means volumes by the end of 2011 will be back to where they were at in the mid-1990s. If we do not get this stimulus package an additional 100,000 jobs in the construction sector are threatened. This will add to the increasing burden of thesocial welfare bill on the state and lead to a deepening of the recession in construction,” said Mr Cribbin.

“The UK and US governments have brought forward innovative stimulus packages aimed at improving their infrastructure and maintaining employment. But here the Government seems to be curtailing key infrastructural programmes instead,” Mr Cribbin said.

The Lansdowne Road Stadium, the motorway network and the new terminal at Dublin Airport are among the major projects due to be finished by 2010.

Tender price figures released recently by the ISCS showed that building prices are now down at levels last seen a decade ago.

The ISCS held its annual conference at UCD yesterday, with discussion dominated by the impact of the recession and NAMA.