Skills blow ‘will mean no more Avivas’

WITHIN 10 years Ireland will not be capable of building major infrastructural projects like the newly completed Aviva Stadium because our skilled professionals, with no projects on which to work here, will be forced to look elsewhere for employment.

That was just one of the warnings issued by leading construction, business and union figures as they banded together to demand the Government re-invigorate the economy by investing in infrastructural projects. They said such a policy shift would not only make the country more attractive to outside investors but would also create jobs and reinvigorate the economy.

As a first step they said the Government must commit to spending €5.5bn per year for the next five years on the public capital programme. That would mean spending 5% of gross domestic product in this area, an investment which, they insisted, would be money well spent.

“The cost-benefit arguments of a strong capital programme that delivers necessary infrastructure and gets workers off the Exchequer’s social welfare bill have been well rehearsed already,” said IBEC director general Danny McCoy.

“Since 2007 more than 140,000 construction jobs have been lost, with employment in the sector dropping from 270,000 to 130,000. Government has a huge role to play in halting that process.”

Tom Costello, managing director of Sisk, which built the Aviva Stadium, said the quality construction would not have been possible 10 years ago and, if things continued as they were, would not be possible again 10 years from now.

“At the peak in 2007 the industry was way above the level it should have been,” he said. “By the end of next year it will be 100,000 people. The size of the industry that is appropriate for Ireland should support 200,000. But people, good people, don’t hang around. They find work elsewhere.”

The president of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, Peter Brennan, said that five years ago he completed a needs assessment of the infrastructural requirements in Ireland in every section of the economy. The required spending at that point was €140bn.

“In the intervening five years we have spent €36bn. So we are still more than €100bn short in a needs assessment of the infrastructural requirements of this economy. When you are looking for a minimum of €5.5bn in this year’s public capital programme that is only beginning to scratch the surface of what a modern democracy needs.”

He said the reality was that the Government, over the past 20 years, had refused and stalled investment in the Irish economy in the capital budget and as a consequence we have huge infrastructural deficit.

“The harsh reality is that there is a mindset residing in Government that spending money on infrastructure is a cost. It is not. It is an investment. Until we get that particular mindset changed, we are going to go nowhere. Tender prices are at an all-time low. If I was in Government at a time when tender prices were at an all-time low I would be redoubling my efforts to get projects into procurement as fast as possible. That is not happening.”

The industry figures at yesterday’s briefing insisted they were not just talking about flagship projects like the Aviva Stadium, but also infrastructural investment in areas such as education, water and waste energy.

“We know we need to build 600 schools between now and 2020,” said Paul Keogh of the Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland.

“I know from personal experience that we signed a contract for a school in Bray last week and it had been on our drawing boards for 10 years. We know in 2001 the Government targeted the need for 600 primary care centres. Ten years later we have only built 220. One of my sources told me that the Office of Public Works has €1bn worth of minor works in the pipeline waiting for approval.”