Limerick social enterprise training builders for future in modular housing

A LOCAL social enterprise is training its workers in fitting modular housing units to respond to the expected demand Mayor John Moran’s flagship scheme may bring.

Limerick City Build, which is based at Upper Clare Street in the city, has taken delivery of two modular housing units.

Staff there are being taught the skills to plumb the units and hook them up to the electricity supply among other things.

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Headed by Ray O’Halloran of Corbally, and managed by his daughter Catherine, Limerick City Build gives training to disadvantaged youths. Should Mayor Moran’s housing plan get off the ground in the coming years - despite its €1bn price tag - modular homes could become a common sight around Limerick.

The first citizen sees this as a way to address the housing crisis, by using these temporary units as a ‘bridge’ to permanent accommodation.

Limerick City Build has taken delivery of two of these modular units of different sizes, which staff have assembled, and are now working on fitting out.

Local builder Tomas Healy is planning to recruit some of the workers who are trained at Limerick City Build.

Having constructed temporary housing units for 25 years, he says, contrary to popular belief, there’s still a lot of work getting modular housing ready for someone to live.

“The modular building is like your telephone. To use your telephone, you have to put apps on it. In our job, the sewer work has to be done. The water, the power, the foundation, the footpath and the finishing off. Lobbing a container over a wall is not going to happen.”

City Build boss Catherine O’Halloran said: “The good thing about modular is you can provide en-masse accommodations for families of up to six in 40-foots, but (the builder's) services are universal to that site. That’s what makes it a much more efficient way to respond to emergency and crisis moments.”

And these skills are transferable to bricks-and-mortar houses too, she notes.

“The skills they learn are applicable not just to modular units, but also to really efficient ways of retrofitting social houses.

There’s a whole spectrum of different housing schemes we need to be looking at and preparing a workforce for exactly that.

What we’ve done is develop a curriculum which really responds to that in a very tailored way,” she explained.

Her father Ray added that coming through the scheme will give a building contractor a worker who has skills in various areas.