Saturday, January 26, 2013

Construction Contracts Bill

There has been a lot of talk emanating from the CIF, the Irish Concrete Federation and also some TD's and Senators in relation to the new construction contracts bill. This talk is along the lines that if this bill was currently in place then some recent problems on sites would not occur.

Random statements are coming into the public domain without any real substance or backup to justify why this pending piece of legislation would somehow magically save sub-contractors.

The latest on this is to do with the Brian McCarthy Ltd Pepsi site in Cork where sub-contractors are owed money and are threatening to blockade the site.

Any new legislation that will improve matters is certainly helpful but for people to be effectively saying that the new Bill will stop main contractors going bust and stop any non-payments going down the supply chain is simply untrue.

It would be best if the CIF and other's would advise sub-contractors to simply arrange a contractual link to the client on such projects by way of a collateral agreement. This is the simple solution rather than moaning and groaning about a Bill that may not even work or function correctly. For example, if conciliator here were a plastering subbie for a project for Pespi then the wise thing to do would be to ensure that if the Main Contractor goes belly up I can run to Pepsi to get money due, it is not that difficult to get this agreement in place at the outset.


Links to recent developments as follows;

Irish Examiner

Irish Construction

CIF News Pepsi

CIF News Kilfinane

p.s. Rather than been guilty of random statements myself  I will do another blog separately on the Construction Bill in the near future outlining it's potential flaws. Link below to something I blogged on the topic a few years back.....

Conciliators previous discussion on the Bill

Monday, January 21, 2013

Another Victim of the Industry


According to the Irish Examiner Newspaper Brian McCarthy Contractors Ltd became the latest victim of the building crash after confirming that it has ceased trading.
In place for the past 36 years this builder employed over 220 during the boom and the decision to cease trading will result in the loss of the 20 direct jobs that remained at the firm. 

A spokesman for the company confirmed a receiver was appointed and stated: “It is a sad time. We have long-serving employees who have been very loyal. It will be as orderly a wind-down as possible.” 

The spokesman said that the company decided to close “due to the unavailability of profitable work”. 

He said: “It was not viable to continue and there was insufficient workload to cover overheads. It was an extremely difficult decision to cease trading, but it was also a prudent commercial decision as it was not feasible to continue.” 

The spokesman said that the Government awarding contracts to below-cost tenders for public works “made it very difficult to continue”. 

The spokesman said: “We have a pessimistic view of the market in Ireland. The public sector is the main market for contracts and the new form of government contract is so loaded against the contractor, it would have been bordering on reckless trading if we had tried to enter into these contracts.” 

The company said that the last 18 months “have been quite stressful when you are doing everything possible to generate new sources of work".