THERE MAY be much talk of lay-offs in the construction industry but the Irish Farmers Association claims its members cannot find builders to carry out work.
The IFA's Gerry Gunning said many small builders who had stopped building houses in rural areas were not taking up the farm construction work, which must be completed by the end of the year under the farm waste-management scheme.
"This is specialised work and most of the jobs are not too big and, while farmers themselves are able to do some of the work, like plastering and blocklaying, they cannot do it all," he said.
"A lot of the rural house builders are not working at all now and have laid off their staff.
"Some of these may not have the expertise but there is also the problem that many of the jobs are scattered over the countryside and this creates logistical difficulties."
Mr Gunning said other factors were involved, such as the scale of demand: the scheme attracted 41,000 applications. "We know that 8,000 of these have been processed, 33,000 are pending but there are 10,000 farmers who we believe may not be able to finish the jobs by the end of the year and risk losing their grants," he said.
He said builders were aware of this and were reluctant to take on jobs for which there may be no grant at the end. Most of the work involved erecting cattle sheds over underground slurry tanks, making concrete silage slabs and repairing silage walls, he added.
The IFA has raised the issue with the Department of Agriculture, which pays grants of up to 60 per cent for completed work to control pollution under the scheme.