Northern Irish firm hits back over Highland Council contract claims
An Irish firm - which is one of several to have won multi-million pound construction contracts in the Highlands - has hit back at claims it does not pump any of that money back into the region’s economy.
A raft of major Highland Council and other public sector tenders to build new schools, roads and flood schemes have been controversially snapped up by firms from Ireland and Northern Ireland.
It prompted criticism from a Highland business leader in December who warned the trend was fuelling their countries’ economies at the expense of snubbed local companies.
But Northern Irish firm Graham Construction, which clinched lucrative UK Government and council work to build vaults at a radioactive waste disposal at Dounreay in a £15m deal, the £11.9m Aviemore Primary School and £3.5m Kingussie High School extension, has defended its record in the Highlands.
The company sought talks with Stewart Nicol, the chief executive of Inverness Chamber of Commerce, after he raised serious concerns about the amount of work going to Irish companies and claimed they were putting little back into the Highland economy.
Commerce members had complained the companies were taking their own staff over, not hiring plant and equipment locally and staying in Portakbins.
But Gary Holmes, Graham Construction’s regional director, insisted the firm did recruit local workers and hired Highland sub-contractors.
Sixteen labouring jobs for Highland workers were created across the three projects in Dounreay, Aviemore and Kingussie and 10 sub-contracting companies from the region were hired at Aviemore.
The company was unable to state how many Highland sub-contractors were hired at Dounreay, but said 120 out of the 165 staff on site are Scottish but.
"We are proud to be playing our part in supporting the construction industry in the Highlands and take our responsibilities to the local construction industry very seriously," said Mr Holmes.
"Our firm policy is to recruit Scottish people to work on Scottish projects."
Thurso and Wick Trades Union Council said last month that Graham Construction had largely imported the workforce to build the first two sub-surface vaults at the new low-level radioactive waste dump and knew of only one local worker to have been employed.
A Graham Construction spokesman said it was "not always" easy to source every expertise required from the "small local workforce" in Caithness.
Graham established a permanent base in Scotland 11 years ago and has regional offices in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Mr Holmes said the firm had secured the high-profile Highland contracts because of its track record.
"The plain fact of the matter is that we win business in Scotland because we have invested heavily here for over two decades, building a team of local, experienced personnel at every level," he said.
Mr Nicol was encouraged by the meeting with Graham Construction and said he hoped other Irish firms would follow its lead.
"They have gone about engaging with the Highland business community and that is to be welcomed," he said.
"They were also talking about and seem to be actively engaging with local sub-contractors. We would like to see a lot more of it, is a good start."
