Public Contracts Opportunity

In a radio report last week one Irish union representative suggested the Government should bring forward more public contracts in the National Development Plan (NDP) in an effort to replace job losses in the housing sector, even if this means borrowing heavily.
However with the Irish civil engineering sector performing so well in recent times, the Government should be looking at the feasibility of bringing forward more NDP projects to take full advantage of the unprecedented output abilities of Irish civil engineers at this point in time.

Because of the huge housing output of the past few years, infrastructure such as schools, healthcare and water treatment are now playing catch up. While there will be many construction job opportunities in these areas in the coming years a golden opportunity is being lost at the moment because projects aren't coming through the system quickly enough.

The Irish Government stumbled earlier this year when it announced that there would be delays in getting a number of high profile Transport 21 Plan projects to site. Coincidently, there is a Transport 21 billboard campaign running at the moment, which highlights the Irish Government's €34bn investment in road and rail infrastructure as part of the €184bn budgeted National Development Plan 2007 - 2013.

While there is no shortage of activity in the civils sector, when you consider the productivity of those in civils jobs over the past two years you would have to say never before have Irish civil engineering firms been better placed to handle more work. They regularly deliver major roads projects below budget and ahead of schedule and many in the sector believe there is capacity for even greater output.

Last year, former CECA (Civil Engineering Contractors Association) president John Craddock said that while he was delighted with the success of the sector to date, he believed that Irish civil engineering contractors and their construction teams were capable of handling even more projects. It is just a matter of those projects coming on line.

So maybe it is time to revisit the NDP roll out schedule before the opportunity is lost.