How many labourers does it take to make a motorway?

Minikin raises a very important aspect of virtually ALL recent major Irish public civil engineering projects.
Take for example Dublin`s O Connell Street Integrated Area Project (IAP)

This high profile job was processed in a very bizzarre manner altogether with some of the oddest work patterns I have ever seen.

Over the duration of the project there were many times when various operatives were falling over themselves in the battle for site space...huge spasms of machine handling,concrete pouring and assorted other civil works.

Then...suddenly the workforce would melt away,leaving behind the detritus,flotsam and jetsam enclosed behind ever flimsier fencing.

The even odder aspect is that the fallow inactive periods usually occurred during the best of our summer months which saw finishing time set in stone at 1600 each day leaving several hours of sunny even tide with nuttin even being attempted.

Then,suddenly,come October and it`s dim short hours of daylight coupled with wet miserable cold weather and hey presto..!!!! :eek:....The labourers returneth...I lost count of the evenings I watched groups of wet bedraggled workers accompanied by generator powered floodlighting and often a hired in water pump or two,attempting to perform some task which they could have performed in semi naked mode a few weeks previously

Ther actual hours of work were also highly irregular,or perhaps TOO regular as the operatives reported daily on a very neat 9 to 5 basis with no sign of ANY activity of a weekend....:cool:

I suspect the M50 project is the spawn of the same type of "serious" Civil Engineering professionals who bask in the glory of their own projects...These lads/lassies are after all University Educated and will brook no oul guff from the hoi-polloi who simply gaze upon their works and weep....:P

Seamus Brennan invited Signor Manuel Melis of the Madrid Metro team...(3M he was known as...:rolleyes:) to tell us all how Madrid managed it....Senor Melis was direct and to the point......Fully Agree a Plan-The Simpler-The Better.
Begin Work and continue 24-7-365 until the job is complete.......There yiz have it sez the Spanish Senor.....He was quickly escorted to Collinstown and flown back to Spain for his own safety.

Meanwhile back home in Erin,the peaceful peasantry continued their placid existance undisturbed by such wild notions as Agreed Plans.....Night Work....or in fact ANY thing resembling work,whilst their betters spent even more money on Consultants and other PR stuff like the "new" logo for T21....(€74,000)....

Sometime in the future I envisage a destitute Spanish nation inviting Noel Dempsey to appear before the Cortez to advise them on how to overcome the oul Catholic guilt thing.....:D

I drive the M50 from Leopardstown up to the M1 3 times a week. If I drive down in early morning no building has started yet. When I leave dublin in the afternoon it appears most of the builders are gone already. It sometimes seems they are only working from 8 - 3 or so.

I found that really weird. The M50 is one of the most important roads in the country, and they decide to make it a part time job. In any other country (even in the north) most of the big road work projects are done 24/7 to speed the construction time up to make sure people are affected as little as possible. But not so in Ireland.

I am convinced in every other major western country (probably even in most asian countries) the M50 would have been completely finished 2 years ago.