Government hits back in McGill row

Today Ms Marra told the Tele: “Why didn’t the government look at the situation as a whole? I don’t understand what has gone wrong here. If I were Shona Robison or Joe FitzPatrick I would’ve been at Jamie Hepburn’s door demanding to know why he couldn’t provide the £2m to save 450 jobs. It is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things.

“I’m so angry about it – it is recklessness on the part of the government when you consider the impact it has had on firms such as Land & Building Services.

“We are running out of highquality jobs in Dundee.”

Yesterday, Land & Building Services, another Dundee construction firm, announced it was entering administration, laying off all 27 staff. Derek Forsyth, of administrator Campbell Dallas, said the loss of McGill as a “major client” was partly to blame for the collapse.

A spokesman for Scottish Enterprise said: “Consideration is always made of the wider economic impact when considering requests for financial support. In this case, every avenue available to us was explored, but we couldn’t provide a significant sum of public money to a business that we, and others, did not believe was sustainable in its current form.

“We appreciate that recent events will have come as a blow to the McGill & Co workforce and their families and we continue to work with our partners to support them.”

Land & Building Services.