McInerney fails completion target

Building firm McInerney Holdings failed to meet its guidance for expected completions in Ireland in 2007.

Private house completions fell to 594 in 2007, compared to 1,025 a year earlier, while the contracting business completed 391 housing units.

Overseas, the development firm performed better in the United Kingdom, with 1,400 private house completions, compared to 980 in the same period a year earlier. Total completions in both the private and contracting residential sectors in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Spain were 2,414 units, slightly up on the 2,372 seen in 2006.

The firm was still upbeat about the Irish property market, and said the correction could be beneficial to the firm's business model.

"The market is going through a period of correction, some of it necessary," McInerney managing director Barry O'Connor said.

"This adjustment should provide a more stable housing market and should be advantageous to our business model. The fundamentals behind the Irish housing market remain positive."

The company also reaffirmed its 2007 profit guidance, supported by land disposals during the year.