‘Nixers’ are real big threat... let us build
Construction chief says figures show sites are safe
KEEPING building workers idle in lockdown is more likely to help spread the virus than contain it because they will start doing ‘nixers’ instead, building leaders have warned.
Construction Industry Federation boss Tom Parlon says strict Covid rules on building sites meant the most ‘we had on any week was 56 cases’.
‘Last week was down to 29 cases out of 32,000 people on sites. By comparison meat plants have been suffering up to 800 per week.
‘We’ve put in an almighty effort into setting up some good operating procedures that have worked and proven to be good, the strictest adherence to all the Government strategies. All the statistics show we have minimal or zero impact on Covid, you’re safer on a building site than you are in the community. The lads on building sites are not lazy, they want to be working, they’re not comfortable when they’re not working.’
He warned: ‘When they’re at home or in their digs, if there’s an opportunity to get a bit of a nixer in the local community, go in and tile a bathroom, plaster a ceiling or fix a tap or whatever, they’re going doing that, I have no doubt.
‘Even though they’re all responsible for their own health, they’re going into family homes or other premises and they’re not nearly as safe as building sites.’
The CIF has again written to the Taoiseach asking him to look at the situation again.
Mr Parlon said: ‘The evidence again shows our ability to work safely, and we want to be back to work and contributing to the economy and relieving the housing crisis, building the infrastructure that is so badly needed. There’s a massive infrastructure deficit, we’re building a hospital that was needed five years ago not five months ago, new roads.
‘All the big players, Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, Salesforce, all of them are building big HQ offices in Dublin at the moment that are all at some stage of completion and are all stopped.
‘One of the biggest international online retailers were building a big facility, it’s on a 130-acre site here and was due to be finished next Christmas, it’s totally at a standstill.’
Of the delays to a new Amazon distribution centre in the country, Parlon said: ‘The European director of that company has been on to me, he’s based in Luxembourg, Irish-born. “This is embarrassing,” he said. “I have about a dozen of these across Europe, every one is working away normally and the Irish one is locked up”.’
SHE glided effortlessly down the catwalk in the Swinging Sixties – or at least she appeared to.
However, now Twiggy has revealed that she had always struggled to walk in heels throughout her career as a supermodel.
The 71-year-old, who now goes by her real name Lesley Lawson, said she found them ‘too difficult to manoeuvre’ and has to get somebody to help her ‘climb into’ towering shoes on photoshoots. Speaking to artist Grayson Perry on her Tea with Twiggy podcast, she said: ‘I cannot walk in high heels. I know I’m a supermodel but I could never walk in the bloody things. They’re dangerous pieces I think, they’re too difficult to manoeuvre. I can’t balance.’
Twiggy, who previously revealed that wearing heels has given her back problems, said she still occasionally works on photoshoots.
She said: ‘If I do a photoshoot - I don’t do many any more but when I occasionally do them - obviously you look nicer in a high heel because it makes your legs look longer and everything.’
Ms Lawson said she gets into position before putting her shoes on, adding: ‘[Then] I get somebody to hold me and I climb into the high heels.’
The septuagenarian, who is worth a reported €35million, became a cultural icon in the 1960s for her pixie haircut and long eyelashes.
But she recently revealed she did not want to get the elf-like crop and only obliged as she was ‘too shy’ to say no to the experimental new style when she visited the London salon Leonard of Mayfair aged 16.