Builder sets out on a different road

When the construction boom was in full swing, Eddie McManus was a busy man. Involved in installing floors and under-floor heating, he worked all over the country. At the height of what he terms the 'madness', his firm employed 11 people. Then the credit crunch came along and it all went awry. Suddenly, firms that had been fattened during the good times found themselves with only a slimline order book. All over Ireland, building workers were handed their P45s and expensive machinery was left rusting and redundant. McManus"s firm - Call Eddie Ltd - did not escape the chill winds that blew through the economy. They were also forced to downsize and let people go. While he says there is still some work to be found out there in the construction game, it is far from what it used to be. With more time on his hands, McManus decided to open up a new business from his house at Oberstown, Skryne. A few weeks ago, a sign proclaiming 'Ed"s Tyres" went up outside his house, like a green shoot in a desert landscape. At a time when firms were taking shelter, McManus decided to try something different and open up a company offering a range of new and nearly new motor vehicle tyres. He has no hesitation in describing himself as a 'risk-taker" - someone who is prepared to roll the dice and see what happens. He had decided to go into tyres simply because he felt there was an opening in that sector and he wanted to do something different. The Skryne man invested a considerable sum of money on importing expensive new machinery designed for fitting tyres. It was a cheaper option than acquiring similar machines closer to home. 'We went over to Germany and England and sorted out tyres for ourselves and decided to give it a go,' he added. 'We had to go to England to buy machines. We couldn"t buy them in Ireland, they were twice the price.' So far, he says, the enterprise is doing fine, pointing out that it is still only in its infancy. Getting a list of contacts is the main issue at the moment and acquiring credit from tyre wholesalers is proving far from easy. A 'starter package" from one of the banks helped him along the way. Having been involved in running his own business for many years now, the 38-year-old is well aware of the pitfalls. He says that, as it stands, his firm is owed €136,000 from his days in the construction business and if he collects half of that by the end of the year, he will be a happy man. No surprises He wasn"t surprised when the building industry went belly up. He has seen many things during his working life but some of what he witnessed during the days when the Celtic Tiger roamed the land made him sit back and wonder about it all. He says the unions and industry watchdogs have a lot to answer for as people went after profits with all the finesse of hungry sharks in a feeding frenzy. He believes houses were built that are barely fit for human habitation, cobbled together at breakneck speed. 'Houses were built too quickly, men started at seven o"clock in the morning and worked until nine or 10 at night. 'Where does the union rule come in there and the application of 45-hour week apply? Some were doing two or three weeks" work in a week,' says McManus, who is married with two children. 'If all the builders had worked a 40 or 45-hour week, as they were meant to, there would still be another two or three years" work left in the industry. It was like winning the Lotto and spending it in one week instead of spending it over a year or two. 'There was no-one saying 'stop". You could come in at six in the morning, put up your own lights, and start working until nine o"clock at night. In America, Australia, anywhere else in the world, construction workers wouldn"t be allowed to do that,' he says. He added that he regularly came across workers who boasted about getting cheques of €1,500 in their weekly wage packets. The price they paid was working 60 or 70 hours over six or seven days, often climbing up and down scaffolding towards the end of the week exhausted from their labours. McManus says it all began to unravel when one member on the construction chain said that he simply couldn"t pay his creditors. 'One or two lads might have gone bankrupt or broke overnight but when the news went out that one fellow couldn"t pay another, everybody jumped on the bandwagon and decided they couldn"t pay either.' What would he say to anyone looking to embark on a business adventure? 'Don"t,' comes the laconic reply. 'There"s a lot to be said for what you know you"re getting on a Friday evening. Having your own business is not all it"s cracked up to be. When you go on holidays, you bring the phone with you. My wife, Pauline, threatens to kill me when we go on holidays,' he adds with a laugh. He says he owes a few suppliers money at the moment and, if he wanted to follow the trend set in the construction business, he could simply close his doors and write off the debts. That, he insists, is not his way. 'I wouldn"t do it and they know I wouldn"t do it,' he adds. While there is a downside to running one"s own enterprise, Eddie McManus also gives the impression that there is a sense of achievement in setting up a company and watching it develop. Despite the gloomy news of late, he believes the economy will bounce back, maybe not to the levels of the Celtic Tiger years, but better than it it now. He remains an optimist, something that has helped guide a course through some of choppier waters of business life. Economic downturn or not, Eddie McManus intends to remain busy man as he sets out in a new direction.