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IRISH RAIL HAS hired its first new apprentices in 20 years, following a two-step recruitment process that including an aptitude test and a round of interviews.
Almost 1,900 people applied for 13 positions as trainee electricians, mechanics, fitters and welders.
Over 1,400 took the aptitude tests, and 66 were called for interview before the final few were selected.
The final 13 included one woman. However, only 9 of the total number of applicants were women.
“At one point we had 7,000 employees, but reductions in the workforce mean there are just around 3,700 staff currently,” spokesperson for Irish Rail Jane Cregan said.
“We also had a recruitment ban in place for a long time.”
While the company has recruited fully-trained workers for similar roles more recently — particularly during the Transport 21 phase of station construction — this is the first time apprentices have been hired since the 1990s.
The new recruits will undertake a four-year course, in conjunction with Solas, and will spend blocks of time studying at institutes of technology as part of the programme.
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Look at the price quoted per unit €100.000 . someone is going to make a killing . roankabin aka dob. Proper houses could be built , enough builders unemployed. Make the investment and get it sorted.
If these are built they will think the problem is solved. We are in “temporary cabins” in work. They were for 3-4 years. That was 15+ years ago and now they are falling to pieces. This is what will happen. We need houses!!
Is this a joke? No, it’s Irish political logic.
It the quick buck and parish pump politics mentality again. We need to investing houses and other infrastructure now. Once build they will serve the economy for hundreds of years. This will create jobs and enhance the economy.
Creating the slums of the future is NOT a good idea!!!
people are mixing up “prefab” with modular. They are not the same. I’m standing on a stand in London right now at a show called the Offsite Construction Show, and the quality and breadth of modern modular buildings on show here is as far away from the ‘prefabs’ people on here are thinking of. Right now some of these are higher quality than site – built houses, not lower, and ate equally long – lived and durable. Ireland needs to catch up.
Richard Roger Y-Cube units cost only €42,000 each
Ireland is the guinea pig experiment country for globalism.
How to make a servile mixed race populace, with no loyalty to family, nation and race, just part of a worldwide populace of interchangeable cheap labour,……work and debt slaves. All living in boxes called hab units, and taking their docile inducing fluoride water, which they pay for.
Come on the Ireland, where are you?
In fairness, it would take at least a year to get some houses built. People need shelter this winter.
When did you last see a shipping container falling to pieces Deborah? 4 of them joined together (using common sense) could make a very comfortable home IF you use your imagination.
And be bigger than a lot of luxury “studio” flats where you can’t swing the proverbial cat.
The vested interests in the building industry will fight this tooth and nail.
The quoted price of 100k each is an even bigger rip off than a pair of Nike runners though.
you can build a 3-bed semi to completion in 9 weeks. btdt (2006 btw…)
@Pete – that is possible of course, and I have a 20′ container out the back so know what’s involved to get it to meet building regs etc. However it’s cheaper to build a compliant one from scratch.
Prefabs will eventually turn into favelas ( slum within urban area )
All houses deteriorate if they are not maintained and there are plenty of empty properties around the country if the councils had a mind to buy them cheaply and do them up., I wouldn’t fault these prefabs either if the site development work is done properly beforehand, otherwise it just becomes another halting site for Irelands cast offs.
Some of the post-war prefabs in the UK Midlands lasted well into the 70′s and were only bulldozed to make way for larger housing estates. I knew an elderly lady who raised her adopted children in one and it broke her heart to leave it and I must say that it was a very pleasant place to live , perhaps it was the community spirit that kept the gardens neat and the homes maintained and given modern materials and insulation, not to mention the array of safety features, I would live in one myself should the need arise. Getting the right neighbours would be an essential for the success of any pre-fab village.
No. Houses are houses and sheds are sheds. Houses are for people and sheds are for cattle.
Pretend all you want, most of the ‘houses’ in this country, even in D6-South County Dublin and all the way to each corner of this country, are much worse than sheds, and light years worse than prefabs. Houses are not supposed to be cold and moldy by design!
We have bog standard mansions and now we have sheds . ?
These will become permanent. They will become sinkholes of disadvantage and create more social problems than they solve n
There isn’t really anything wrong with modular design on its own. The biggest potential problem is who is put in them and if they are happy there.
Ballymun towers were not badly designed but the selection process fell apart. Tenants could insist on moving or refuse to move in so they started putting in people with huge social issues. This increased the exit by stable tenants and it turned into a downward spiral
Such a pity that Ballymun failed, I worked on the first of the houses [not the towers] and they were of a higher standard than my parents house, warmer and very neat.
@ Kal Ipers,reading the comments here one can see why projects that work world-wide fail in Ireland as most seem to be venom directed at some businessman who has upset the sans-culottes and not at all about the topic of prefabbed buildings some of which offer spectacular possibilities.
Chini, so true. We are obsessed with “traditional” housing in Ireland by which we mean concrete blocks and brick built by hand on site. If we designed and built cars this way we’d still be hand cranking them in the morning. Most so-called Irish traditionally built houses are poorly insulated and often poorly constructed and finished. The way forward in mass production terms is factory precision built using modular construction techniques. The key factor as the author points out is good design, well chosen sites and community buy in. All of this is possible.
Modular houses can last every bit as long as other types of homes and are usually built to higher specification and higher standards. Most people seem to confuse them with old fashioned prefabs or cheap prefabs designed to have short lifespan. They are not prefabs in the sense used by other posters.The key factor is design and proper siting. This obsession with traditional housing is farcical. Only in Ireland would we extol the use of concrete block construction in a country with one of the most damp and most windy climates in the world. I grew up in a traditional house. So did most of us. It was cold and damp but modern buildings are better insulated. The key word being “modern”. Modular housing is modern as well and constructed to a very high specification. And if you gear up you can produce it very fast in an assembly line fashion to a very high specification and more speedily than so-called traditional housing. It can also look very well. It’s called good design.
The traditional building of houses was stone and mortar how long have we been building with concrete blocks in cavity walls?30 or 40 years?
Spoddgy at least 70 years or more and probably longer.
Ask ‘Redacted’. Sure he is involved in this somehow.
SiteServ bought a portakabin company not so long ago.
Read of that what you will but it stinks of inside information to me.
Of course, what interest would a construction company have in portocabins, eh? Tough question. Seriously though, can we please get over this DOB nonsense. It’s like we’re afraid to do anything in case DOB somehow, somewhere has a company that might benefit. Or maybe we prefer to have families shacked up in hotels rather than risk a few quid finding its way to a DOB company. Maybe DOB should buy a few hotels and hostels.
Oh sorry you’re right, I’d better stop…
First tell me this, how come SireServ bought that company less than a week before the government announced these were the solution to the housing crisis?
I mean they could of been a little less obvious.
If its roankabin your on about, siteserv owned them long before o Brien bought it, but I’m sure you can fit it into your conspiracy somewhere
It’s hard to debate with people who can make up their own facts, and can deflect reason with copious quantities of tin foil.
Inside? – Dublin councils desperately short of accomadation -about 1 year ago they said they were investigating their use – a month ago they had demonstrations of modular houses- that’s very slow council progress (all reported in media) nothing remotely inside about it .
What about those empty houses in the Midlands? Oh wait…
it would make more sense to use that money to build permanent traditional homes. prefabricated units are the new towers of Ballymun.
Another cop out for s quick fix solution that will create more problems.
FG are turning homelessness into a business.
Most of my secondry school classes were held in cold damp out of date prefabs. The government loved supplying them. Replacing them was a different story. Can’t imagine living in the damn things.
Right now , I would LOVE to have shares in NAMA and Roankabin , These guys are going to make a killing in housing the poor and unfortunate, and good ol DOB gets to pocket some MORE loot from the humble taxpayer. Just when you think NAMA are surrounded in controversy and whispers , it appears they build houses too ??? ,Well I didn’t know they could also build houses, sure arn’t they a great bunch of lads ????
Declan, so your objection is that someone might make money? And you think that if we build “traditional” houses someone won’t make money? Ever hear of the Celtic Tiger and the property bubble? Isn’t that the point of a capitalist economy? Isn’t that why builders build homes – to make money? Your cynicism attracts green thumbs but you offer no new solutions at all. Traditional houses are not going to be magicked up in short order. We need a range of solutions. Modular housing i.e. factory constructed homes, is one solution as part of a mix. Would you insist that your car be built by hand or are you happy with cars that are precision made in factories? Modular homes can work extremely well and last every but as long as traditional homes.
the irish obsession with concrete and houses built to survive a nuclear fallout is numerous. It really does make you laugh. you can have a house for a third of the cost but people are too snobby
Thomas Clarke / james connolly/ Diarmuid/ Kenneth – your support for such ‘housing’ presumably hasn’t anything to do with your constant support for Denis O’Brien / FG / Siteserv , constantly on these threads , with your multiple Troll names ?
As you are no doubt aware , Siteserv / Portakabin , are huge providers to the market of such Temporary ‘houses’ !
Presumably, Alan Kelly , as Enda’s Puppy has been sent in that direction – to sort out the Accommodation crisis – by FG / Lab. ?
Apologies – Roankabin – not Portakabin !
have u not got a job to go to Thomas or are fg helping u out buying ur vote
I think people’s mentality is that houses must be made from concrete blocks . people need to open their minds more . there is all different types of home from timber frames to beautiful barn conversions to log cabins .. if I had a choice of being homeless or having one of these homes I’d gladly take one .
Your forgetting the cold wet damp climate we have here in Ireland. Timber/cardboard/flat roof buildings don’t work or last very long. Concrete houses are strong and don’t decay. They stand the test of time. Not to mention the natural fireproofing they provide. It’s the crappy stud partition buildings that don’t meet fire regulations that are in the media lately. A properly built house will last for 3-4 generations not 10 years like the crap modular house. It will also create badly needed employment in the construction sector.
Modern modular housing is much better than the prefabs built in the past. Flat roof construction is much better now and you can get 30 year guarantees now versus 10 years in the past and not lasting that long. Insulation is much better too and 10% of the width but higher standard.
Don’t confuse old prefab school rooms that were used past their use with a modern prefab. You wouldn’t compare a 40 year old car with a modern car.
I think most homeless would run past your placards complaining about prefabs into somewhere better than a hotel room or old bedsit they live in now. Even if these go ahead, it will be 9 months before they’re ready. As for real social houses, that’s a minimum if two years if they got approval today. In the meantime the list hits 100k. It’s emergency level now. What’s the alternative?. Who has the funds apart from nama to build, who has the skills to build in scale apart from most of the failed nama dependent builders still living here. There is no magic bullet. Freezing rents does not solve the list crisis, it just stops it getting worse. Increasing the rent allowance will work for a few months then rents will rise to swallow it whole, especially in Dublin where most of the demand is. No government can just magic up new houses. Even with the current massive demand and low credit costs there is no builders meeting this requirement and that’s excluding any social building work.
Bedsits are now illegal to rent while I am sure some are still rented the majority are gone. This is a huge contributory factor into why there is a crisis.
They reduced the rent allowance and then removed a portion of rental accommodation for the lower end of the market. This was certain to effect those on lower incomes.
People were happy with this being done and dismissed the warnings which have now happened.
C Mc Gyver, do you even bother to read up on modular housing before you comment. Ten years life span you say? of course you could design it like that if you wished I suppose. The cold damp climate here in Ireland is precisely why concrete block construction is actually unsuitable. The only thing that makes such homes livable is modern central heating and modern insulation. But some homes are actually inherently more efficient and modular is one of them. They are precision built to be energy and space efficient. They can be designed any way you wish and to any standard you wish. Building homes on site the way we continue to do in Ireland is something we extol in no other sphere. You are lauding the usse of 19th century construction techniques when we have 21st century techniques available to us i.e. factory built precision engineered homes. Risible. Go and buy a car built the way you want our homes to be built.
@C McGyver – nonsense. Timber buildings built properly (note, properly) will last as long as any block house. It’s not the fact it’s timber/other – it’s the quality of erecting of them.
I have worked on modular housing projects. I have seen and experienced first hand,modular construction. There is no comparison to a modular home and a traditionally constructed home. Yes they are quick to order and install.
The problems I see is :
1. Fire ratings.
2. Sound pollution (both inside and from
Outside)
3. Try selling one if you want to move.
4. The general appearance of one.
These are for social housing so selling on will not be a major issue. Some of the best houses in Grand Designs for new builds were modular. In most cases modular will be the only way to speed up even traditional social house builds. We know that sound pollution ranks low in most home owners top10, it never did even in the early stages of the boom. As to insulation, we have much more advanced materials now and regulations are far advanced.
@C McGyver – glad you have experience, let me address. 1. Fire. Modular can meet & exceed conventional building fire performance. Btdt, have the Agrément Cert to prove…. 2. Sound. Quality materials and assembly make them quieter, not noisier than conventional. Again, and because it’s a requirement for UK, have the Agrément cert to prove…. 3. I sell them for a living, to the UK mostly, where regulation and oversight is far more onerous than Ireland . All are not equal. 4. I challenge anyone to identify what a house is built from, from the outside appearance. I’m staying in Docklands this eve, and as many ‘conventional’ look ‘modular’ …..doesn’t mean anything. Planning dictates appearance, not what it’s made from…so take that up with planners. We can make them look like anything you like… And no, I don’t work for any of the Co’s bandied about in this thread, esp vis a vis That Project… Next ?
C Mc Gyver: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark. Iceland, Faroe Islands, Svalbard, Canada, Alaska. What do they all have in common? Harsher climates than us, and a tendency towards wooden houses, maybe? Also, “traditional” is very subjective – wattle and thatch is traditional, if you go back far enough – concrete built is pretty much a post WWII phenomenon for housing. (Also I live in a concrete-block semi-D, and let me tell you, I can hear most of what my neighbours do, and all of what happens on the street outside)
Seems to me we just bounce from crisis to crisis in this country, the press TV online and radio spent 6 yrs talking about recession, banking inquiry, nama. Pre that, in a pseudo buoyant economy it was climate change and we’re all doomed factor. Economy is on the swing so it’s housing and homelessness. All we want is the truth
There is an old saying people seem to have forgotten beggars can’t be choosers it’s all grand and lovely saying they should get this or that because their homeless blah blah blah, but in reality it’s working people tax payer money that’s funding this (no it’s not being pulled out of thin air), and while I think everyone should have a roof over their head if your getting it for nothing you should take what you get once it’s not hazardous to your health, what would you think of a homeless person on the street demanding a minimum of €5 off everyone who passes it wouldn’t really wash, and what do you say when friends or family are buying a home (out of their own money) and they turn down them all for some stupid reason, “oh their just being too fussy” yet the attitude is whit people getting them for nothing is they should get aras an uachtarain built for they a dose of reality is badly needed here.
Is this a joke? Would anyone in government live in one of these? Would anyone reading this article like to live in one of these, seriously were are we living when this is an excitable living space.
Should be a pre condition of their existence, all politicians should co-habit these cabins, think of all the travel expenses saved. Wonder if it would still happen given such a scenario.
@Keith. I like your thinking. Erect a prefab village on the grounds of Leinster house and enforce all TDs to stay there when they have to come to Dublin. No more expensive hotel room. Modular accommodation on site. Perfect!
I’d go one further, and volunteer to help them move in :-)
I will ask a question with a tin hat in place.
Where or how can I find out who or whom get the council houses in the Dublin area? That is , between Irish indigenous nationals , EU immigrants, Non eu immigrants, Asylum seekers , Medical preference ,Etc.
I just want to investigate that the housing placement is fair. I have just left DCC , I am 7 years on the housing list due to illness and I am told another 10 to 13 years more for me and my family to be housed. I will be pushing up daisy’s well before then, so I am concerned for my wife and kids.
So do I seek FOI from DCC or CSO or will they have some restriction that I will not be afforded any information.
A genuine Question above for people in the know.
Thanks in Advance.
Fred, FOI is one way but it largely precludes the issuance of personal information/data so I don’t think you will get the level of granular detail you require to see if you are being unfairly treated. I think you would firstly need to seek the relevant information from DCC and if you fail to get the information you need you could appeal internally. Failing that you then go to the Ombudsman/Information Commissioner. Your main problem is that there is not enough housing to meet demand either in the public or private spheres. Sincere sympathies on your plight and best of luck to you and your family.
I still find it hard to believe that this is what is on offer for people! It’s shocking! Also a couple of these burned down in that Halton site midweek, more of a reason not to use them. And it’s a Denis o brien company that is supplying them. THIS GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE ASHAMED 5 YEARS IN POWER AND THIS IS THE BEST THEY CAN DO FOR HOMELESS AND PEOPLE WITHOUT A HOME, ASK YOURSELF WOULD THEY LIVE IN THIS TYPE OF HOME NO! THIS SHOWER OF BAST**DS DON’T CARE ITS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.
Was a priest not burned to death in a HOUSE over the weekend aswell so should what will we give them so?
Your a gobsh*te yourself with your fake account! Would you live in this? I certainly would not and anyone who says they would are liars! This government don’t care about homeless people they just care about there own bank accounts!
Joe drop the shouting. You can’t magic homes out of thin air. What is being proposed here are modular homes – you know – the same way we build all modern products like cars, aeroplanes, railway carriages and yes, even homes (as they do in many countries). People here are fixated on building concrete block homes the traditional way. You know, like we did 100 years ago. The only reason we can live in these homes now is central heating and better insulation which are modern solutions retrofitted at great expense to most of our housing stock. Traditional homes are still largely built in a way which is very inefficient, expensive and designed to give rise to problems. Even if your modern home has a B energy rating construction I would lay odds that if you did an infra-red test and airtightness tests it would not pass. And this is because we are using old fashioned techniques in lieu of precision. Properly designed and constructed modular housing is very well insulated and equipped and long lasting. It is designed to be put together on site very precisely with everything already installed, again precisely. They are not prefabs. They are merely prefabricated homes using modern industrial techniques based on precision engineering. They are quite common abroad in backward places like Germany and Sweden; places renowned for their terrible industrial standards (I’m being facetious here of course).
John r , very informative , well said !
they are if DOBsy owns the company
Because stacking lower income families on top of each other worked so well in Ballymun.
This is absolute madness.
Why did they knock down ballymun surely some of it could be saved for emergency house after what happened in carragmines these will endup the same in 10 year
It would have cost more to refurbish them. There is also people waiting for housing to be built on the land that they have already been promised.
Only if enda & Dennis have there way
mcNAMAra removed the hoarding from dob’s site on stephens green over the weekend which could be taken as a major embarressment to DOB or maybe it was removed to be used to temporary enclose the proposed shanty towns for roankabin
Not the future of my housing.
Amazing spaces
Could all the state and council bodies(even schools) identify small areas where they could site 2 or 3 of these cabins at a time – to try keep people in the areas they’re from- otherwise yr taking people away from their local support – kids changing schools – and not making ghetto villages-
Check out britains post war prefabs they were there until they fell down. We need proper local authority houses, decent accommodation for people to live in like crumlin drimnagh ballyfermot
My great aunt lived in one post war -fantastic comfortable homes – only taken down 30 years later because the site was wanted for higher density housing -
The first thing that struck me with this plan was that after the latest fire tragedy how vulnerable any occupants would be in these boxes.
Bob, what is being discussed are not portacabins or indeed the type of “temporary” accommodation used to house the poor Travellers. What is being discussed is modern modular homes which are fully fire compliant and indeed compliant with all building regulations and standards. This can be ensured (unlike most traditional builds) because they are built in factories to a high level of precision using the techniques of mass production in a factory environment.
@Bob. More propoganda…..A modular house must meet the same fire performance as any method of build. There is no lower spec just cos it’s modular. I’ve done enough fire tests to know.
Y-Cube housing units by Richard Rogers cost £30,000 each in London (circa €42,000)
Good design is the solution – its already being done in London by YMCA.
We must avoid “Portacabin” type units
Accommodation for immigrants.
These “sheds” are NOT the answer to the homeless crisis.
How long before they turn into shanty towns ?
How long before the residents are know as “trailer thrash” ?
Like it or not, it’s all about DOB making even more money off the backs of the most vulnerable in our society.
These “sheds” cost 100k each and another 60k for services and labour = €160k
There are houses for sale on the open market for less. Not to mention the amount of voids in every estate, which could easily be opened up and renovated quickly. The new residents would then have a proper secure home in a settled estate with all services on hand.
This is all about money and brown envelopes. The government don’t give a dam about the people. That’s as clear as the nose on your face. We need to get them OUT !!!
accommodation for immigrants
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