Press release: Councillor Matt Waine (Socialist Party)
Minister and politicians celebrate M50 upgrade today while ignoring scandal of wilful destruction of small Irish firm on the project
Two former unemployed steel fixers from Tallaght bankrupted by race to the bottom
“Mr. John Gallagher and Mr. Terence Farrell, former unemployed steel fixers from Tallaght, set up Terstan Ltd, a small steel fixing company which was engaged by M50 (D&C) Ltd. in the form of two contracts which together amounted to some €556,000 of specified steel fixing work on the M50 upgrades between the summer of 2008 and September this year.
“The letter of both contracts provided for ‘diminished quantities’ of work for which M50 (D&C) Ltd would not be held liable. However, the reality is that Terstan Ltd. was assigned work amounting to an income of €112,000, that is slightly over 20% of the work indicated in the contract, which in the view of any fair minded person goes far beyond the realm of simple ‘diminished quantities’. I gather most of the work itemised in the contract was instead awarded to another Portuguese firm.
“There has been a huge financial and human cost incurred by Messrs Gallagher and Farrell, who on the strength of the original contracts, borrowed €20,000 from AIB and Bank of Ireland, as well as money from their respective families so that they could meet the legal and administrative costs of expanding their newly created firm, including taking on staff at proper union rates of pay to meet the size of the contract.
“The reduced amount of work provided to Terstan has led to the constant laying off of highly skilled staff and the accumulation of debts on their part now amounting to €133,000. Struggling to meet their obligations in terms of wages and taxes these men have been reduced to utter penury with no recourse to Social Welfare given their self-employed status.
“There is no dispute regarding the high quality of the work carried out by Terstan Ltd. The facts and evidence as presented by the men to my party colleague Joe Higgins MEP point to a grievous wrong being perpetrated on them. The National Roads Authority, as a state body, carries in my view a statutory responsibility to ensure this type of occurrence is not a feature of state funded projects.
“Rather than leaving it to Messrs Gallagher and Farrell to contemplate a costly legal action or some other desperate measure to achieve justice I call on the NRA to intervene and facilitate the negotiation of a fair compensatory settlement.”
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