Bruce Shaw Partnership, the largest quantity surveying practice in Ireland, is delighted to launch The 2008 Bruce Shaw Handbook. The handbook, which is in its seventh year of publication, has established itself as an authoritative and valuable reference document for the construction and property industry. With a distribution now in excess of 10,000 copies, the Bruce Shaw publication has placed itself firmly in the industry as the must have guide.

The 2008 edition of the Bruce Shaw Handbook, which launched at the Four Season’s Hotel in Ballsbridge, by An Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern includes a wealth of current statistics for industry professionals including; Irish construction costs, indices and key data; residential and commercial property statistics and an overview of the international market, construction costs and indices. This year’s publication also includes articles on current issues such as cost benefit analysis, the competitive dialogue process, commentary on construction output and the well publicised slowdown.

Gerard Campbell, Managing Partner, Bruce Shaw is very proud of the Bruce Shaw Handbook: “We have endeavoured to create a publication that is a ‘must-have’ for all construction industry professionals and hope that the 2008 book is as well received as its predecessors.”

“Like all Bruce Shaw publications, the handbook is wholly produced in-house. We have a diverse range of skills which we utilise in creating our publications. Editorial content, design, artwork and production are all created and managed by our dedicated team”, commented Gerard Campbell.

The 2008 Bruce Shaw handbook features a number of topical articles about the Irish and international construction industry.

Tender Prices
The significant slowdown in the new residential construction sector which makes up the bulk of the construction industry has increased the capacity of the industry overall. There is greater competition throughout as contractors and sub-contractors compete to fill their order books. This has resulted in some very keen pricing particularly in preliminaries, in the traditional trades and in mechanical and electrical services. Overall tender prices are now reducing for the first time since 2003, following a period of static prices during 2007. During 2008 it is likely that the increasing spare capacity within the industry will drive margins down further and Bruce Shaw are predicting a fall in tender prices of 2% to 3% on average.

Construction Costs
In contrast to tender prices, construction costs (i.e. the input costs of labour and materials) will continue to rise at about 3% per annum. Labour costs have increased by 2.5% since 1st January 2008 and the current Registered Agreement will run out at the end of June. Materials will increase generally in line with consumer inflation with any oil based materials rising faster than this and steel prices continuing to reflect world wide demand. Imported materials from outside the Euro zone will benefit from the relative strength of the Euro compared to Sterling and the US Dollar.

Looking ahead to 2009 it is likely that the market will have adjusted to the fall off in new residential construction and that housing completions will return to a sustainable level of approximately 65,000 units per year. In these circumstances Bruce Shaw predict that both construction costs and tender prices will rise at similar levels of 3% to 4%. This trend should continue in the short term although tender prices may increase slightly faster if the Irish industry benefits from any spin off from the London Olympics in 2012.

Volume of Construction Output
The construction industry is currently experiencing the well publicised slowdown in new residential construction. In 2006 an all time record of 88,200 new dwellings were completed. At €19.5 billion new residential construction represented 55% of total Irish construction output.

In the first 11 months of 2007 only 71,598 new residential units were completed and it is forecast that the year end total will be approximately 75,000 units, a reduction of 15%. The slowdown in new residential construction has become more marked as 2007 has gone on and completions in 2008 are likely to fall further, perhaps to between 50,000 and 60,000 units. Unfortunately such a significant fall in the residential sector affects not only construction but the economy as a whole.

The decline in new residential construction activity during 2007 was however offset somewhat by increases in other sectors. These include residential repair, maintenance and improvement works and new non-residential construction. The major areas of increased activity during 2007 were in the private sector with new offices, retail schemes and industrial projects all showing increases in construction output. It is likely that these sectors will continue to show growth during 2008 but at a slower level than in 2007.

There have also been some increases in public sector productive infrastructure (roads, water schemes, airports, energy, etc) and social infrastructure (education, health and public buildings). Expenditure in these areas has however been slower than anticipated, perhaps because of the introduction of new public sector procurement procedures and forms of contracts.

Bruce Shaw hope that, despite the slowdown in the economy, 2008 will see increased public sector construction activity to compensate at least partially for the reduction in new residential construction.