The figures come from Ireland’s Construction Industry Federation (CIF), which point to the strong level of work that is expected to take place during the upcoming year.
“We are expecting to see a strong increase in construction activity during the course of the coming year,” said CIF director general Tom Parlon. “For the first time in seven years there are a lot of reasons for the construction sector to have a positive outlook for the upcoming year."
CIF estimates the value of construction activity in 2013 came to approximately €9.9bn, up from the 2012 level of €9.07bn. Additionally construction employment as measured by the Central Statistics Office (CSO)’s quarterly national household survey grew by 9,100 between Q1 and Q3 2013 .
The federation has cited a variety of reasons behind the expected increase in activity, including:
- the €6.8bn of large and medium projects already scheduled for 2014 as recorded by Construction Information Services;
- more projects under the National Stimulus Plan progressing to on-site activity, along with the government’s commitment to bring forward more projects when possible;
- the further rollout of the €2 billion in working capital and the €2bn in seed finance;
- a modest increase in house building, centered around the larger urban areas;
- interest in smaller construction projects generated by a home renovation incentive scheme;
- the predicted return to commercial construction activity in Dublin City Centre.
“You can see a wide variety of reasons why we expect the industry to grow on a macro level in the next 12 months,” said Parlon. “The sector turned the corner in 2013 and all the expectation is we will see further growth during the year. Given the number of factors in play that will generate activity during the coming year we predict that the sector will grow by approximately €1bn on a national level. This will bring the overall value of the sector to an estimated €11bn.
“We’ve seen already how a small increase in construction activity can create a lot of employment so we believe that an additional 10,000 jobs will be generated in the sector over 2014.“
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