{"id":634085,"date":"2026-09-24T03:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T03:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/634085\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T03:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T03:10:12","slug":"8000-staff-needed-metrolink-has-been-going-around-europe-for-the-last-year-for-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/634085\/","title":{"rendered":"8,000 staff needed: Metrolink has been ‘going around Europe for the last year’ for workers"},"content":{"rendered":"

METROLINK OFFICIALS HAVE been \u201cgoing around Europe for the last year\u201d on the hunt for workers and engineers on the multibillion euro project.<\/p>\n

Some 8,000 people are required to work on the 19-kilometre Dublin railway, which was described as a \u201chumongous ask\u201d for just one project during a construction summit in Croke Park, especially when there are a series of major works planned by the government.<\/p>\n

The Construction Industry Federation (CIF) gathering held detailed discussions on MetroLink on Wednesday, with questions raised over whether the government can ensure its infrastructure plans become reality.<\/p>\n

The chief executive of the National Transport Authority (NTA), which has oversight of MetroLink, cautioned that the project may encounter further constraints, as there are so many big infrastructure projects being undertaken in Ireland at the same time.<\/p>\n

MetroLink\u2019s first passengers are not expected until 2036 to 2038. The project took a step forward last week when the government signed off on the next stage, paving the way for private companies to bid for the construction and operation contracts of the railway.<\/p>\n

The final cost is now expected to be as high as \u20ac17.5 billion, if not more when the final sums are counted.\n<\/p>\n

Infrastructure plans meeting reality\u2019s constraints<\/p>\n

The CIF summit, entitled \u2018Ready to deliver: Ireland\u2019s decade of construction\u2019, examined projects from transport to water to energy that the government wants to see developed and built over the coming five to 10 years.<\/p>\n

NTA boss Anne Shaw told the CIF conference that the \u201cfloodgates will start to open\u201d with infrastructure projects, which she said is a positive, but warned that \u201chuge demand\u201d will face the system\u2019s capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look across the whole of infrastructure, across Uisce \u00c9ireann, transport, energy: all of those projects start to come together at the same time, there\u2019ll be huge demand for the supply chain,\u201d Shaw said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think that there will be a capacity issue there at some point.<\/p>\n

MetroLink, for example, 8,000 workers in the life of that project, coming in from bricklayers to heavy machine operators to tunnellers. 8,000 people. I can\u2019t believe that there\u2019s 8,000 people just hanging around waiting. And that\u2019s just one project.<\/p>\n

Recent reporting<\/a> outlined that discussions are underway for new housing to accomodate 2,000 of these workers, with the homes to be used for the national housing stock after MetroLink is completed.<\/p>\n

Shaw confirmed when appearing on a panel that transport authorities are in talks with the Land Development Agency, the state housing company, to come up with purpose-built housing for a chunk of the MetroLink workforce.<\/p>\n

MetroLink goes to Europe<\/p>\n

Interim MetroLink director Michael Flynn said the project will require an estimated 5% of the Irish construction workforce, as he urged Irish companies in the room to clear their schedules and prepare to tender for work with the company.<\/p>\n

Recent reporting outlined that discussions are underway housing is going to be provided to house 2,000 of these workers, with the homes to be used for the national housing stock after MetroLink is completed.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging that the project has already been a quarter of a century in the making, Flynn said that the project took a \u201cmassive step forward\u201d last week when the government gave it the green light to begin issuing tenders to contractors.<\/p>\n

Flynn said \u201cphysical work will be commencing in around next year\u201d, but he explained that the project has long-faced challenges in terms of sourcing a skilled workforce for such large engineering works.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin Ireland there isn\u2019t the capability to do the job the size of MetroLink, so last year we went around Europe to find workers,\u201d Flynn said, adding that there had been a \u201cfantastic\u201d response from European civil engineering firms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were impressed by us going out to seek them out rather than us waiting for them to come to us,\u201d Flynn said.<\/p>\n

\"download
\n Impression of Tara Metrolink station\n<\/p>\n

John Daly, economist with the Midlands-North-West Regional Assembly, outlined potential risks that the major developments pose, including to regions outside the capital.<\/p>\n

Citing data showing the current construction labour force stands at 190,000, Daly said it was a \u201chumongous ask on the sector\u201d to add another 100,000 people to that number.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere may have to be more open conversations in terms of foreign nationals coming in,\u201d Daly added, as a way to meet the need.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_7365\"
\n MetroLink dominated some of the panels at this week’s construction industry summit. The Journal<\/p>\n

The Journal\n<\/p>\n

Shaw, of the NTA, admitted that an issue facing the NTA and major infrastructure projects has been a \u201cbrain drain\u201d among its own personnel.<\/p>\n

She said this was \u201cstarting to change\u201d thanks to the \u201csharp increase of ambition\u201d from the government\u2019s infrastructure plans, but complained that it has been difficult to ensure complex projects have staff with the \u201cright skillset\u201d.<\/p>\n

This was having the impact that, even though there is \u201cconfidence around the pipeline\u201d of work starting to emerge, key works have been \u201ctaking longer because they haven\u2019t got the capacity\u201d at present.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"METROLINK OFFICIALS HAVE been \u201cgoing around Europe for the last year\u201d on the hunt for workers and engineers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[268935,72,38325,37992,61,60,29093,269217],"class_list":["post-634085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-building-summit","tag-business","tag-cif","tag-construction-industry-federation","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-metrolink","tag-workers-wanted"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}