Worries mount over Ireland's road programme

by Anthony Garvey



Irish expectations that a recently unveiled IR£4.7bn (£3.5bn) road building programme will attract a rush of major contractors from the UK and Europe have been dealt a worrying blow.

Only two firms, one local and the other with Irish connections, have expressed interest in tendering for construction of a new motorway, despite the fact that the contract, worth IR£130m, (£100m) had been advertised in OJEC (Official Journal of the European Communities). Now the project is to be readvertised in OJEC in the hope that it will generate a better response.

As a result, construction will inevitably be delayed and there could also be cost implications for the project, which is for Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. A council spokesman said it required responses from at least five companies to obtain a competitive tender and the council was baffled by the lack of interest shown by outside contractors.

The lack of interest raises fears over the huge road building programme, announced by government as part of a IR£41bn (£30bn) national development plan, and which is to be completed in six years.

The Irish construction industry is struggling to find workers to cope with an unprecedented domestic boom and does not have any spare capacity for such large projects. The Irish government is therefore looking to UK and European companies to take up the contracts.

Ironically, just as Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council admitted that it would have to readvertise its motorway project, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was sounding a warning about the expected invasion of EU contractors, which would be "a shock to the cosy relationships of the past".

He added: "I want people to understand what is going to happen. Within two years, an awful lot of road building contracts will be going to outside companies. The people here do not have the capacity to take them on. It is going to be big stuff, and big money. And, of course, these foreign companies are going to bring in a lot of their own workers too."

Ahern said outside contractors were essential if the roads programme was to be completed by the target date of 2006.

This has prompted the Irish National Roads Authority to alert embassies of EU member states, including Britain, that almost IR£5bn (£3.7bn) in contracts will be on offer over the next few years.

One of the points being emphasised is that outside contractors will "not just be managing projects, but delivering the whole package", and that will involve bringing in their own workers.

According to plans announced by enterprise and employment minister Mary Harney, some 200,000 EU and non-EU workers are to be recruited over the next six years to help fill the increasing number of vacancies in both sectors and maintain the boom.