Local building industry in crisis as three in four workers on the dole

Date Published: 12-Mar-2009

IT is now estimated that 75% of those employed in the building trade across Galway city and county are now on the dole queues as the industry reaches crisis point.

Desperate measures are now being undertaken by building developers in an effort to offload property – including slashing tens of thousands of euro of houses. And it is having the effect of ‘dangling a carrot’ in front of a lot of potential house purchasers who have remained extremely quiet in recent months.

A number of building contractors contacted by The Connacht Tribune say that the knock down prices were luring more and more people to look at property and some are even being sold.

The Director General of the Construction Industry Federation, Tom Parlon, said that prices of houses had virtually reached ‘rock bottom’ in County Galway and could not possibly go any lower.

He was in Galway earlier this week to discuss the impact of the banking crisis on the building industry and was advising contractors about how to manage their relationships with the financial institutions.

But, in general, he said that the building industry would…