BUILDING AND engineering group SIAC is letting go 55 workers from its structural steel business. SIAC Butler’s Steel in Portarlington, Co Laois, is cutting its workforce by almost half as a result of the construction slump.

The company manufactures and supplies steel girders and other components used in building. It will cut its workforce from 123 to 68 as a result of the redundancies. The company told its staff the news earlier this week.

The nature of its business means that SIAC Butler’s Steel depends mainly on big building and engineering projects, either publicly-funded or commercial.

The virtual shutting off of credit means that there is little or no commercial activity either in Ireland or in Britain, to where it began exporting over the last decade.

Over recent months the company agreed new terms with its workers that allowed it to cut shift allowances and other extra payments.

SIAC bought Butler’s Steel out of receivership in 1996, and grew the business as the Irish construction industry boomed.

The firm pursued its own contracts as well as supplying structural steel used on projects where its parent was the main contractor. During that period it expanded into Britain with a number of purchases, including a company in Gloucester, which gave it a foothold in the midlands and north of England.

SIAC is one of the biggest construction and civil engineering groups in Ireland.