'Everyone has to pull together': Former Cork hurler on the challenges facing construction sector

Cork's Garvan McCarthy celebrates his goal in the Cork vs WaterfordMunster Hurling Final in 2004/ Picture: ©Inpho/Patrick Bolger

With the last recession wiping out a generation of would-be carpenters, plumbers and other tradespeople, the fear is palpable among those in the construction industry that Covid-19 restrictions could toll the bell for another round of careers.

This culling would be doubly devastating for the industry, they say, because the impact of 2008 and its aftermath thinned the talent coming through, leaving a shortage of tradespeople in key areas.

Shutting down construction projects on Friday at 6pm may be in the best interests of public health, but Government supports will be pivotal if the industry is to avoid another catastrophe, it is claimed.

For Glounthaune-based Garvan McCarthy of Cork Building and Carpentry, there is a sense of deja-vu.

A member of the Cork senior hurling panel during the glorious mid-2000s, Mr McCarthy thinks of his workmates and fellow tradesmen as similar kinds of teammates to the ones he had on the field of play.

"Everyone has to pull together, take stock and see where we are afterwards, that's all we can do after finishing at 6pm on Friday.

To be honest, we were only back on our feet really, after the last financial crash. I served my time during the last boom, and the second that I qualified, things went belly up.

"I was a fellow in survival mode for the 10 years after it, and 2020 was the first year that things were going very well. I thought to myself, okay, this is why I am in business.

"The outlook was good and you could plan instead of looking from job to job to keep yourself going and the show on the road. I took on people for the first time, with five guys now with me. I went from a guy just surviving to being a proper business in the last two or three years."

When the last lockdown happened, construction was insulated well with financial support – which must be continued and enhanced if the industry is to avoid another mauling like 2008, Mr McCarthy said.

Another ghost generation beckons otherwise, and society will be the biggest loser, with unfilled jobs and higher demand being unmet for tradespeople, he added.

"There are a lot of people that I would have served my time with back then, and whom I worked with down through the years, who are gone out of construction now. They went to factories and places like that, and they never came back."