CIF RETRO-FITTING PLAN COULD CREATE 40,000 JOBS - Today the Government is being presented with a plan to create 40,000 construction jobs. The Construction Industry Federation claims a national programme of 'deep energy retro-fitting' across the country's residential, commercial and public buildings will save €1 billion a year in energy bills.
The director general of the Construction Industry Federation, Tom Parlon, says a fairly successful retro-fit programme has been running over recent months, and it has been successful in getting public interest, but the works have been 'shallow'. He says a much deeper retro-fit programme is needed which would see work worth about €20,000 per household being implemented. He also says the programme should be widened to include public buildings like schools.
Mr Parlon says there is still money in the country and people should be encouraged to invest in making their homes and offices 'greener'. The CIF plan is based on using a range of financial incentives to stimulate the market in the early stages of development. While it limits the requirement for direct Exchequer involvement, Mr Parlon says he realises that some Government support will be necessary. But he adds that any state investment would be more than repaid through the environmental, economic and wider societal benefits from the plan.
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MORNING BRIEFS - Ajai Chopra of the IMF and experts from the European Union and the European Commission are in town for almost two weeks from tomorrow to review how well we are meeting the terms of the bail-out.
*** The European Central Bank may increase interest rates by quarter of a percentage point to 1.25% on Thursday. The increase is widely expected as an effort to stem euro zone inflation.
*** A 'stress-test' of approximately 35,000 companies carried out in the first-three months of this year has found that almost half are now showing signs consistent with business failure. This represents a rise of 10% on the previous quarter. The figures are from the business information and risk agency, Vision-net.ie which stress tested 34,912 companies.
***ESB Electric Ireland has announced it is cutting its electricity prices for households from today and entering the gas market. The company says its electricity customers will save on average €120 a year while those who avail of a gas and electricity package will get average savings of €190 euro. For the last two years, the ESB has been forced to stand back and look on as it lost hundreds of thousands of household customers to Bord Gáis and Airtricity. That is because the Energy Regulator wanted to introduce competition for the historic monopoly provider in the retail electricity market.
*** On the currency markets the euro is worth $1.4229 and 88 pence sterling.
