SDCC not including social clauses into all construction contracts

South Dublin County Councillors have raised concerns after it was revealed that the local authority is not implementing social clauses into construction contracts.

The issue came to light following a question submitted to this month’s council meeting by People Before Profit Councillor Madeleine Johansson.

Social clauses can be included in tendering contracts for projects such as social housing or community facilities.

They usually promote the hiring of locally based labour, the employment of workers who were previously unemployed or apprentices.

In a reply to Johansson’s question, South Dublin County Council said that social employment clauses have been included in only four construction projects – two libraries, and two housing schemes.

These are the North Clondalkin Library, Castletymon Library, Kilcarberry Housing Development, and Killinarden Housing Development.

“Other projects such as the Lucan swimming pool, the Balgaddy housing and community centre development and others have no social clauses included,” Johansson said.

“It’s disappointing to see that a large number of council projects don’t have any social clauses.

“We should be using social clauses to ensure that workers living locally can access work opportunities in the local area.

“This would benefit not only local tradespeople and construction workers, but also the environment as travel to and from work would be reduced.”

South Dublin County Council said that while procurement is “primarily focused on enabling the delivery of public services in a sustainable manner by ensuring value for money and broad access to public procurement opportunities for businesses, there are possibilities to deliver wider social and environmental aims through the procurement processes.”

However, local TD Gino Kenny said that these clauses are not being used enough to help promote local employment.

“I’m very concerned that these social clauses are no longer part of council contracts,” he said.

“I have been contacted by construction workers in the local area who have been denied work on sites here.

“There is also a big problem with bogus self-employment in the construction industry and I think South Dublin County Council needs to take more responsibility to ensure that this is not happening on their sites.”