E450m deal brings local opportunities
A E450m project to build a motorway in Poland will bring several hundred jobs and could create more indirectly for local businesses, it has been claimed.
Speaking as Irish based construction firm SIAC released details of the scheme, Northern Ireland director Kieran Doyle said it represented a significant opportunity for the firm and others at a critical time.
"It's a big news story as far as the construction industry goes," he said.
"There's not many of those contracts about."
The contract follows a strategic decision to try and develop international markets in the face of reduced opportunities across Ireland and Great Britain.
The firm is now in the running for several more contracts of a similar size in Poland.
The project is for the construction of 35km of motorway in the south of the country between Krakow and Rzeszw in time for the European soccer championships taking place in 2012.
As well as the roadway the contract also involves the building of 28 bridges, one of them a kilometre long, in the process.
After 18 months of planning and tendering the deal was signed two weeks ago. Construction will start in August 2010 and it is expected to take 24 months to complete.
"We have people out there already going at it," said Mr Doyle.
"The significance is that it gets our turnover up and it allows us to expand up here ourselves and then there are the subcontractors who are already approaching us about this job.
"There are all sorts of jobs in the construction industry involved from earthwork subcontractors to formwork, pre-cast concrete. There are all those sorts of jobs and local businesses are all in the running for a share of this work.
"We've worked with a number of these firms and we know how well they operate and we'd much prefer to use somebody we know than somebody we don't know."
Given the overall condition of the sector in the province Mr Doyle said the project offered a potential breathing space.
"It is generating money for people in the construction industry here who can go over. Subcontractors who are running out of work, they can keep their people over in Poland for two years and keep them working while this downturn is on here.
"They come back and things could be okay again. It's a chance also to keep specialist resources and prevent people being laid off."
Based in Dublin, SIAC constructed the landmark Boyne Bridge on the M1 motorway, and was also responsible for construction of the motorway south of the River Boyne and the A1/NI Newry/Dundalk link Road. In the last five years, it has also completed two major PPP projects in Ireland, consisting of 110km of high quality motorway.
"It's like Ireland was 10-15 years ago. There are massive infrastructure projects ongoing and they have to get them done, but they haven't got the full expertise in Poland or the amount of resources so they have to draw them in from elsewhere."
Comparing it to the amount of contracting taking place in Scotland he said the Polish deal even offered some opportunities for the airlines.
"The world's getting very small these days. You could travel quicker nearly to Poland than you can to Cork.”
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Wednesday 30 May 2012
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