Despite the travel we’re better off – the rates are double those at home

25 May 2016

THE men jumping on board MG Construction’s minibus are becoming used to their 5.30am Monday collection.

With the birds cranking up their dawn chorus as they leave their sleeping families behind for the week, this squad of a dozen joiners and bricklayers has been making the same journey for over a year.

Two recently returned young emigrants, a young man keen to buy his first house, a hurler determined to be home for his weekend match, and skilled workers on the cusp of retirement, there is little chat at first as they begin the long haul to their Scottish building site, where they will work 11 hour days building luxury homes before their return journey on Friday afternoon.

Mumbling greetings as they fling their hold-alls to the floor before grabbing their usual seat, they are subdued as they begin their journey to join hundreds of others at Belfast airport, conspicuous in their trademark Snickers, as part of the massive weekly exodus of construction workers.

Unofficial daddy of the gang is designated driver Philip Fitzsimmons, who has been working as a bricklayer for the firm for over 30 years.

Edging towards retirement, Philip admits he has never considered travelling so far for work before and was surprised, after so many years in the industry, to hear of workers commuting to Scotland and England rather than emigrating as they may have done in the past.

Considered the “top of the chain” in construction, he said “brickies” like him were first to notice the economic downturn about eight years ago and are likewise now first to benefit from the current revival in the industry. He said it was an unusual twist that the revival this time around came with, in the words of Christy Moore, “the price of a flight.”

Because of the length and depth of the recession, he said he was ready for the opportunity to work on a job outside Glasgow last year. Since then, he has been responsible for collecting an ever-growing squad for the big commute, driving a bus through Saul and Downpatrick before daylight to catch the first flight of the day out of Belfast.

“I have seen most things in my time and there has been emigration in the past when building work has dried up but I have never seen anything like this. Most workers travel out on a Monday, there are more tradesmen than anything else at the airport,” he said.

“Despite the travel and everything that involves we are still better off, the rates are double those at home and that makes it worthwhile.

“It was bit of a novelty at the start, but it does become quite monotonous. Personally I don’t mind if I am home on a Friday evening.”

Sitting alongside Philip is his 25 year-old son, and fellow bricklayer, Dean, who was part of a very different exodus a few years ago when hundreds of young tradesmen quit the area for Australia because of the economic downturn.

Dean said he had recently decided to return to Saul after almost four years abroad, keen to come home despite the knowledge that local construction was still in the doldrums. Now home for a year, he said he was, despite warnings, still shocked by the lack of local work.

“There was a lot of work in Australia and it was better paid than home but, like a lot of the guys who had moved away, I still wanted home for a while,” he said.

“There was not much work about at all when I got back, but it is picking up a bit now, mainly in London, which is booming. You see 10 new jobs advertised in the paper every week you are there.”

As Philip drives into Downpatrick for his next round of collections, his passengers are still quietly acclimatising to the early morning, checking their phones or watching the sunrise. The banter only begins when there is an apparent delay with one of the pick-ups.

A recent recruit to the early morning run, Liam McConvey isn’t waiting at his usual stop. As Philip begins a complicated reversing manoeuvre and wonders aloud which door to knock, the missing man bounces around the corner, half eaten sandwich in hand.

Fifty six year-old Liam is no newcomer to recession, which he says has in the past driven tradesmen into permanent emigration.

What is indisputable, he says, is that the last recession was the worst. At first travelling south to keep himself going, he said local construction ended up in “really bad shape.”

“The work was not drying up, the banks stopped giving money out eight years ago,” he said. “That is where the problem lay.”

Despite being downcast about the continued state of local industry, Liam’s arrival stirs the troops.

Speaking for the first time since being ped to the bus by his girlfriend, 30 year-old bricklayer Adrian O’Neill, who is among those to have returned from Australia for a super-commuting lifestyle, is hoping to be able to buy his first house with the security offered by his commuting lifestyle.

He said he is slowly acclimatising to the big weekly journey.

“It is not too bad. It is in your head on Sunday, but once you are there it is OK. You are working 11 hour days so by the time you get home and have your dinner it is time for bed,” he said.

“There is starting to be work at home, but going to these jobs there is better money.”

Twenty six year-old joiner Aidan McCann agrees they face an exhausting working week with little time for recreation. A keen hurler, he said he never considered emigrating with many of his contemporaries because of his love of Gaelic sport.

This determination to stay home to play for his believed Kilclief, he said, has stayed with him despite the fact that the recession hit almost as soon as he had served his time.

“I only had a couple of years of the good times before things turned bad. Now, for the first time since I qualified, things are starting to properly pick up if you are prepared travel,” he said.

“You will take the work where it is. It is nearly all tradesmen in airports on a Monday morning, that is something we notice the whole time.”

With the sun now up, and the airport in sight, Galloway’s men start to gather their belongings, ready for the usual airport security checks and their low cost flight breakfast roll.

Fully awake now, Liam even starts to sing a bit of Christy Hennessy as he disembarks;

“Don’t forget your shovel if you want to go to work, Oh Don’t forget your shovel if you want to go to work…..”

Tweets by @TheDownRecorder