Construction Contracts Bill

There has been a lot of talk emanating from the CIF, the Irish Concrete Federation and also some TD's and Senators in relation to the new construction contracts bill. This talk is along the lines that if this bill was currently in place then some recent problems on sites would not occur.

Random statements are coming into the public domain without any real substance or backup to justify why this pending piece of legislation would somehow magically save sub-contractors.

The latest on this is to do with the Brian McCarthy Ltd Pepsi site in Cork where sub-contractors are owed money and are threatening to blockade the site.

Any new legislation that will improve matters is certainly helpful but for people to be effectively saying that the new Bill will stop main contractors going bust and stop any non-payments going down the supply chain is simply untrue.

It would be best if the CIF and other's would advise sub-contractors to simply arrange a contractual link to the client on such projects by way of a collateral agreement. This is the simple solution rather than moaning and groaning about a Bill that may not even work or function correctly. For example, if conciliator here were a plastering subbie for a project for Pespi then the wise thing to do would be to ensure that if the Main Contractor goes belly up I can run to Pepsi to get money due, it is not that difficult to get this agreement in place at the outset.


Links to recent developments as follows;

Irish Examiner

Irish Construction

CIF News Pepsi

CIF News Kilfinane

p.s. Rather than been guilty of random statements myself  I will do another blog separately on the Construction Bill in the near future outlining it's potential flaws. Link below to something I blogged on the topic a few years back.....

Conciliators previous discussion on the Bill