Cork City Council spent over €10m contracting  tradespeople last year

A councillor has said that more tradespeople need to be directly employed after it emerged that Cork City Council spent more than €10m on external contractors last year, and is expected to spend a similar amount this year.

A total of 57 tradespeople — carpenters, plumbers, plasterers, painters, mason workers, and fitters — are directly employed by the council, but additional contractors are brought in when more workers or specialist staff are needed for housing maintenance.

Sinn Féin councillor Joe Lynch asked, ahead of this week’s council meeting, for the number of tradespeople and apprentices employed in Cork City Council’s housing maintenance section, by trade — as well as the sum spent on hiring external contractors to provide housing maintenance services in 2024 and the projected cost for same in 2025.

Nicky Carroll, acting director of services at the council’s housing directorate, said currently 57 tradespeople are employed, and no apprentices. These include 21 carpenters, 17 plumbers, seven plasterers, six painters, four mason workers, and two fitters.

The cost of external contractors for maintenance services in 2024 was €10.1m, and the cost of external contractors in 2025 is expected to be approximately €10m, Mr Carroll said.

Mr Lynch told The Echo that the cost of outsourcing was outrageous. “It is vital that we see changes to how the city council’s housing maintenance system operates.

“It is very clear that there are not enough tradespeople directly employed by the council, meaning external contractors are regularly being hired to carry out repairs to council houses. This is costing the council a fortune — over €10m in 2024 and another €10m this year.

“Using some of those funds to hire more tradespeople means the council won’t have to go through the additional layer of bureaucracy of having to procure contractors to carry out urgent repairs and undertake refurbishments.”