This article is from page 4 of the 2007-07-17 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
THE CONSTRUCTION Industry Federation (CIF) has rubbished re- ports of a major collapse 1n the build- ing sector, claiming that the current downturn is part of a natural cycli- cal pattern and will correct itself shortly.
CIF Secretary for the Mid-West Region, Conor O’Connell, said yes- terday that even though he did expect redundancies following the builders’ holiday, the figures had been blown out of proportion.
‘There is no doubt about it, all the anecdotal evidence suggests that there will be some lay offs around the holidays, but if you look at the figures there has always been a cycli- cal pattern,” he said.
“The run up to the builders holi- days has always been a time when contractors review their staffing lev- els, that has been the case year in and year out.
“So it is very hard to know until af- ter it happens what will take place on the ground. It’s very hard to predict how long a down cycle will take to
run its course, and I’m not sure that we will even see the downturn that a lot of people are predicting.
‘There is an awful lot of scaremon- gering going on at the moment and people are being scared off from making that first purchase. I’d nearly bet my bottom dollar that come next spring there will be a turnaround in the market again.”
While the CIF predict a downturn, the organisation believes that work- ers will simply transfer to the com- mercial sector.
“The outlook for the industry is
still very good. It has boomed over the years and this talk of a big down- turn and a lot of people getting laid off is a bit too dramatic. It is a cycli- cal market and always will be.
‘That said, we do expect to see a significant amount of workers to transfer from house building sec- tor to the general contracting sector. This country is still playing catch about on the services and infrastruc- ture being built up. For example, the provision of a wastewater and sew- age infrastructure,’ Mr O’Connell concluded.