Brendan Barrett, Ascon

Are you confident about the flow of projects coming from the public sector at the moment?

Well we are lucky in the sense that we have about a billion euro worth of an order book in place so we haven’t had to confront the new government contracts as yet. In the marketplace itself, the prices for work particularly since the start of the year seem to have plummeted. It’s exceptionally competitive both in building and civil engineering. It was remarkable when the government introduced the new contract conditions on the roads that the first three contracts went below the normal price for a design and build.

How has the process been so far on Metro North?

That hasn’t been issued for pricing yet. We have been short-listed and expect the documents in April or so. It’s a very complicated risky project so we will have to see how it goes.

What’s the biggest issue facing contractors at the moment?

(BB) The worry is the contract conditions are becoming more and more unpalatable and design and build roads are very risky in themselves but when you add the further layer of risks that the new forms of government contracts are bringing in I think it’s going to bring impossible problems quite frankly.
How do you deal with them? You cannot calculate the risk, it’s like a lottery. You might as well go to Cheltenham for the week.

Where areas are you targeting for long-term growth?

(BB)We’re primarily first and foremost a construction company and we do some complementary development. We wouldn’t be pursuing growth for the sake of growth. You need to grow the business to grow the careers of the people in the company but at the end of the day you have to focus on getting your profit out – that is our strategy. So we stick with the knitting so-to-speak and grow the business in a controlled way. Because we’re part of an international group our brief is Ireland, we’re not looking at foreign markets as such.

This interview is an extract from the Irish Construction Industry Magazine's April Top 200 construction Companies Special - Click HERE to Subscribe Today!