THE MULTI-STOREY car park at Dublin airport’s new Terminal 2 building is the focus of a dispute between civil engineering group, Bowen Construction, and a sub-contractor which says it is owed more than €170,000 for work completed on the €14 million project.
Bowen hired sub-contractor Breffni Plant Hire last year to carry out ground work at the site after a similar deal with another sub-contractor fell through.
The two parties ultimately agreed a €520,000 lump sum for the contract. However, Breffni said this week that it was asked to carry out extra work as the project progressed, and was told by Bowen staff that it would be paid for this in addition to the original figure agreed.
A company spokesman also said that while Breffni received initial payments for work it carried out at the site from Bowen on time, the payments slowed as the work progressed.
Breffni maintains that the final bill for the work carried out is €690,000, but it has only received €513,000, which leaves it over €170,000 short.
The company said this week that it is already operating on tight margins, and a shortfall in payment on this scale puts cash flows in the business - which employs 94 people – under severe pressure.
The company says that Bowen is effectively trying to force it to pay for any shortfall in the main contractor’s own margins. However, Bowen Construction dismissed this claim.
Work on the car park was completed in November last year, and Breffni billed Bowen Construction for the amount that it says is due in December.
Bowen Construction said yesterday that it had paid Breffni the full amount due under the original agreement and said that the dispute was now in arbitration.
The issue was raised in court in March when Bowen sought an injunction against Breffni, which it said had blocked access to the site with machinery and carried out protests at Bowen premises and other sites.
An affidavit submitted by Bowen’s commercial manager, Aidan Drummond, states that the company only agreed to the €520,000 lump sum under pressure from the sub-contractor.
The affidavit says that Breffni refused to work past 4.30 in the afternoon and at weekends, despite the fact that the car park was being built to a tight schedule.
Breffni said that the main contractor never made it clear in the first place that the work had to be done to very tight deadlines.
Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) contracted Bowen to build the car park. Breffni informed a number of the authority’s staff of the dispute between the company and the main contractor.
However, the DAA said it would not be appropriate to comment on disagreements between Bowen and any of its sub-contractors.
