The builder: 'I end up borrowing off people... it's demoralising'

Gary Gleeson shouldn’t have to worry about being paid below the living wage. The construction industry, at least in theory, is governed by industry-wide craft rates. The rate for a general operative like him should be €15.66 an hour. But he says contractors frequently bring in agency workers for almost half the industry rates . Gleeson says he can’t afford to support his three children.

A dispute over contractors at the site where he has been working meant he received a fraction of what he was owed after four weeks’ work. “For the bricklayers it ended up working out at €2.60 an hour, or €20 a day. It’s ridiculous.”

Gleeson, along with other workers at the site – at Kishoge Community College, in Lucan, Co Dublin – are in dispute with the main builder at the site, JJ Rhatigan. The firm denies claims that a system of subcontracting at the site has resulted in the underpayment of workers.