It is difficult to predict how Covid-19 will affect the 150,000
people employed in the construction sector in Ireland. Earlier this
week, the Construction Industry Federation stated that its members
would continue to deploy staff to construction sites while
implementing the Government’s guidelines for dealing with
Covid-19 in the workplace. It is inevitable that ongoing
construction projects may suffer delays due to a shortage of people
or an interruption to the supply of goods and materials.
Delays on construction projects are not unusual and most
building contracts contain provisions to deal with delay events.
While Covid-19 issues will not have been foreseen in existing
building contracts, the circumstances may be managed more generally
as a variation or an extension of time or force majeure event.
