Eyebrows were raised recently at an interview in The Irish Times with the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern. The headline said Mr Ahern was expecting "vigorous resistance" to foreign companies being awarded large contracts for projects under the National Development Plan. Trouble from Irish business and trade unions could be expected. The National Development Plan was going to be "a shock to the cosy relationships of the past".
Who might be lining up vigorous resistance to the motherhood and apple pie of better infrastructure? The Taoiseach didn't say. His quoted words didn't mention resistance at all.
Still, it was enough for the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) to write to the Taoiseach two days later expressing surprise at the comments attributed to the Taoiseach.
The CIF confirmed that its director-general Mr Liam Kelleher wrote to Mr Ahern setting out, at some length how it had operated within the EU Public Procurement Directive of 1993 for years, how it is already commonplace for Irish construction firms to work in joint ventures with international companies, how all five consortiums bidding for the Dublin Port Tunnel are international and how its members were confident they could, as before, deliver the construction phase of projects on target. Hot on the heels of the interview came news that no international bids were made for a €133 million (£105 million) project on the Dublin Southern Cross road and that Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown council had decided to re-advertise rather than accept either of the two Irish bids.
The Republic has a good track record for contracting with international companies. On Tuesday, the EU Commission released data showing that only 10 per cent of member-states' public purchases are met by suppliers from other EU members. The figure was 5 per cent for Germany and 32 per cent for the Republic Granted, this may be making a virtue out of necessity, but the extent of the State's use so far of international contractors is clear.
The quantum shift to €4.4 billion in roads alone, and possibly further billions in rail or metro, is the change the Taoiseach was highlighting.
Sensitivity could be highest on the labour front. The CIF has a concern that international contractors might bid for Irish infrastructure projects and assume they can find the required workers here. The group would like international bidders to be asked about their ability to bring in foreign workers to implement projects.
The implication is that they don't want a bidding war for labour presently in the Republic, or indeed, for international contractors to take advantage of the efforts the CIF and FAS have made to bring back Irish emigrants to work on construction here.
Is this a form of protectionism? For the CIF to encourage Government to look closely at contractors' sources of labour and to move things in the direction of it being a condition that labour will have to be imported serves the interests of members of the CIF, insofar as it prevents their labour costs from being bid up.
Is this in the national interest, as the intonation goes? The national interest requires infrastructure to be built quickly and with value for money. The national interest is for construction inflation to be contained, in roads as much as in private housing.
It would be a good thing not to allow scarce resources of construction specialists to be bid up in price.
At the same time, we are supposed to have a free European market for labour. Companies should be free to attract workers from wherever they want and from whomsoever presently employs them. A free market for labour benefits workers where demand for labour is strong.
How will the unions see it as the National Development Plan and public-private partnerships roll out? Will they push for any foreign labour to be unionised, in Irish unions? ICTU knows the EU rules well. It has operated for the past 13 years on the basis that workers' interests can accord with the national interest. If that approach is carried forward now, we shouldn't see any protectionist labour measures.
Maybe there are other sources of potential "resistance". There is a fair chance that parts of the public sector will resent international companies in their former bailiwicks with a "send in the marines", total approach to construction. And maybe there are enough narrow-minded members of the public to complain about foreign workers we will pay to build our much-needed infrastructure.
There is plenty of evidence that narrow self-interest, vested interest and corruption are ever-present threats to the national interest. One way to reduce the risk of the vested interest and corruption prevailing is to stimulate competition as widely, as openly and as internationally as possible.
No-one can, will, or wishes to argue against that, except those who believe that business's success is achieved by playing the big, predatory fish in the small, isolated pond.
Oliver O'Connor is editor of the monthly publication, Finance. E-mail: ooconnor@indigo.ie
