Call for local firms to be favoured on council projects
WITH the whole country facing financial uncertainty in the wake of the global pandemic, Cllr Michael Whelan has asked that Wexford County Council do all it can to help Wexford firms, particularly when it comes to major projects.
‘I think we’ll have to do more,’ he said. ‘Hopefully we’ll get funded nationally going forward, but a lot of industries will be affected when it comes to projects. Is there any way we can give some advantage to local contractors and suppliers going forward?’
Cllr Whelan’s request was supported by independent councillor Jackser Owens, who said: ‘Every day there are contractors leaving Enniscorthy and Wexford at 5 a.m. to go to jobs in other counties. There’s lads in other counties doing the same to come to jobs here. It’s a hard one to explain. There are two schools being built in Enniscorthy for €15 million and I didn’t see one local person involved in the building.’
‘We do want to give our own county the best shot where possible,’ Director of Services Tony Larkin replied. ‘On larger contracts though, we are obliged to go down the route of national and EU procurement. We can certainly make some local companies aware and going forward we can set up some workshops to show how the tender system works and how to fill out the forms and that type of thing. I suppose, the system does favour larger companies who have people specially to look after this type of thing, but maybe through the LEO will look at reaching out to some smaller companies and showing them how the system works etc.’