The continuing unofficial action by scaffolders in Dublin, Cork and Limerick could seriously affect inward industrial investment, the director general of the Construction Industry Federation, Mr Liam Kelleher, has warned.
"Unless we face up to the fact that uncertainty over construction costs or project delivery will undoubtedly lead international electronics and pharmaceutical companies to look elsewhere when ma king investment decisions," Mr Kelleher said yesterday, "then Ireland is facing into a serious long-term problem. There is already well-based evidence that substantial investment projects are being reassessed after almost four weeks of unofficial action.
"If construction costs and project delivery are interfered with in any way, or uncertainty is allowed to develop as a result of unjustified unofficial action by one small sector of the construction industry, then, inevitably, Ireland will lose its attractiveness for mobile capital investment."
He was seeking a meeting with the chief executive of the IDA, Mr Sean Dorgan, to discuss projects which the federation believed were under threat.
The CIF has advertisements in today's national newspapers stating that the scaffolders' unofficial dispute threatens the economy. The federation describes their claim for basic pay increases of up to 200 per cent as "outrageous" and says its concession would result in knock-on claims which would undermine the industry's international competitiveness.
"In the absence of any legitimacy to their claim, some scaffolders are engaged in intimidation, abuse and acts of public disorder. They are preventing materials being delivered to construction sites and putting their fellow workers' jobs at risk."
Mr Kelleher said the situation might require action by the social partners. He stopped short of criticising the scaffolders' union, SIPTU, or the Irish Congress of Trade Unions for not intervening to stop a strike which was in breach of Partnership 2000.
Last night the chairman of SIPTU's construction branch, Mr Mick Finnegan, rejected claims that the dispute was threatening projects. "It's my understanding that it takes two to three years for a pharmaceutical plant to come on stream and a strike that began less than three weeks ago would have little or no effect," he said.
On the impact of conceding the scaffolders' pay claim on building costs and international competitiveness, Mr Finnegan said: "Last year commercial and industrial building contractors reported profit increases of 40 per cent. It's the employers who are putting inward investment at risk with their price increases, as well as pushing house prices out of the reach of ordinary workers."