Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. Now we're going to move to these new figures out today showing that the building of homes in Ireland slowed last month. This is due to the fuel protests and of course the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The protests caused delays in deliveries of materials to builders, extending the wait until construction is completed.
Let's find out more on this now with Engineer and Director of KMC Homes in Cork, Ciarán McCarthy. Hello Ciarán.
Morning Clare.
Are you seeing this in action?
Chapter 2: What are the recent trends in home building in Ireland?
We, like during, I suppose things have normalised again a bit now lately, but like during the blockade, I mean, look, every delivery was at risk. We had probably about 10 days of, between the slowdown and the actual stop of fuel moving. We saw some, yeah, I mean, we missed one load of concrete blocks to a site. So we had masons on site, they had to turn around and go home back to West Cork.
So that was a day wasted for them. And we had an interior designer coming down to another job that was supposed to sign off on tiling and paint colours and whatever. So all that work had to be postponed for a week because none of it could be signed off because the designer coming.
And then on the other side of it, and this slowdown last month is also put down to the Middle East conflict. So what impacts are you seeing in construction as a result of that?
Yeah, I think that when you step back and look at the broader picture here, I think it's probably more cost related in the medium term because the costs have certainly gone up.
I mean, one of our key suppliers in Cork would have had to increase their delivery costs because the contractor they use to do all their deliveries has given them two increases, one before the fuel crisis and one since the fuel crisis or the war in the Middle East. And it's all related.
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Chapter 3: How have fuel protests affected construction timelines?
So their fuel inputs have gone up, so now they're charging more for their deliveries. I suppose broader again then, when you look at construction products and materials, the biggest issues there are anything that's petrochemical intensive. So when you look at insulation and you look at PVC, insulation has probably gone up 10%, 15%, 18% in places, and PVC products have gone up nearly 20%.
And that's on top of all the increases we've already had from the Ukraine war. So a very unwelcome byproduct of this war.
So again, when you're pricing for jobs or when people who are commissioning any construction work, there might be facing unplanned for increases in the bottom line.
100%. Yeah. So we had a project that we went for planning for, we'll say six months ago. It went to the Cork County Council planning department. We got a further information request. So we had to submit further documentation and everything else. So it came out about six weeks ago and we got planning, thankfully. But now the client...
Because we have planned, the client has to close a sale of their site because it's subject to planning. And they're wondering how much of the cost of the project gone up now that we are about to push the button on beginning on site. So we can see whether we can actually afford to build it now or not, because we could have afforded six months ago. Maybe we can, maybe we can't. No. So there is.
Yeah, I mean, that's the biggest issue, I think. I mean, we will probably trade out of the difficulties with short term deliveries. It's the costs really that are getting baked in again. Yeah.
Well, Ciarán, thank you very much for bringing us your experience of that news today that house building slowed last month.
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