Construction industry wants to be rid of 'cowboy builders'
The construction industry has called for a statutory register to get rid of “cowboy builders”,
Tom Parlon, director general at Construction Industry Federation (CIF) has also claimed that builders and developers have been “excluded” from the Government’s planning on housing.
It comes as the Government launched its new housing strategy which aims to deal with homelessness, social housing and the rental crisis.
Speaking at the MacGill Summer School Mr Parlon said the Government has been “inclined to exclude the construction industry because of the blame that they chose to give the industry”.
But he said that the CIF has been working with the Department of Environment to root out builders who do not meet the proper standards.
“There were ills within the industry in the past. There was some poor, shoddy work carried out,” he said.
“We have proposed together with the Department of the Environment a construction industry register of Ireland - a standards body, which means in the future anybody involved in construction should be competent and should have experience and the skills that they have their insurance that they have health and safety and basically that they are professional builders.
“It’s a way of getting the cowboys out of the industry.”
He said it has already been set up as a voluntary system with 850 signed up to date but the CIF is now waiting on the government to make it a statutory body.
Reacting the Government’s new “Rebuilding Ireland” housing plan announced by Simon Coveney he said numerous strategies have been published over the years which are now “on a number of shelves around the place”.
“All of these strategies are certainly big on targets but they certainly lack the focus on the capacity of the industry to deliver.
“The best time to build forestry is 20 years ago and the second best time is yesterday,” he said adding that housing is similar to planting forests.
While he said the ambitiousness of the report is “very good” he added that “we are at least five years too late with this strategy”.
Mr Parlon pointed out that last year we began building around 8,000 houses and it appears that there will less started this year.
“So when you hear the targets that are out there you begin to wonder. The industry now is going to have to reach a massive level of output, and have four times the amount of commencements in four years’ time than we are doing now, so that’s a massive ramp-up.
“The ambition is fine, but it’s going to be a major challenge,” he said.
