The fall-out from the collapse of the property market continues to be felt in the construction sector where the market for new-builds has all but dried up. Westport engineer, Micheal Sheridan, who employed 10 staff at the height of the boom back in 2006, knows first hand about this sorry state of affairs.
“We’ve gone from a staff of 10 down to one after I had to let nine people go, which I can tell you wasn’t nice,” said Mr Sheridan, who would previously have spent most of his time on the road working on large housing schemes from Drogheda to Wexford. “I had one lad in particular with me since going through college, who had never worked anywhere else. Letting people like that go was very difficult.”
Mr Sheridan first noticed the slow-down three years ago when work started getting scarce. “The lack of money is still the biggest problem. Clients don’t have access to funds and we would still have a huge amount outstanding.”
With such worries hanging over his head Mr Sheridan still manages to remain upbeat, continuing to turn up at the office to do 9-5 days.
“You have to get up and go to work. I do find though I’ve been dragging out my work to fill my day rather than the other way around. The less work you have the less you do, whereas when you’re busy you fly through everything.”
Having received no response to advertised offers of work and with the brakes put on housing estate developments for the foreseeable future, Mr Sheridan has reverted back to basics chasing jobs such as home extensions and one-off houses.
“This is a very crowded market as anyone I would have employed is also looking for the same work, so your employees become your competitors.”
Mr Sheridan has since looked at securing alternative sources of income.
“It’s back to re-educating yourself in some other field and I’m turning my attention to the growing renewable energy market, looking at whole house systems in regard to energy-saving, heat recovery, solar panels, and wind generation, and working towards offering it as a whole package. If you’re in position to regenerate your own electricity you stand to make huge savings.”
Without staff to call on Mr Sheridan is also having to do all his own admin work these days.
“People say to me at least I have to answer my phone, which is something I never did in the boom - even my mobile would divert to the office. But now I gladly answer all calls.”
Mr Sheridan has also become a landlord of late, renting out office space formerly occupied by staff in order to keep the wheels turning. Above all he is intent on remaining active, visible, and optimistic for the future.
“Why not be upbeat? At the end of the day these are only money problems and this is not the first recession I’ve seen. There are bigger problems we could be having and as long as everyone has their health and can go about their business, things will eventually come round again.”
He also thinks there is a good lesson in all of this for today’s youth. “This could have been a lazy generation but now they are learning how to be self-sustainable. As parents who grew up in a recession we may have been over-compensating by making it too easy for our kids up to this, but now all they are hearing about is recession so they are getting a good education in the value of money.”
