Leading Portugese construction and civil engineering group Somague is planning a big expansion of its Irish business as it tenders for road-building contracts worth hundreds of millions of euro.
The newly-appointed manager of the group's Irish unit, Luis Leite Pino, said that the Dublin-Waterford and Nenagh-Limerick road contracts were among those in its sights. With both projects scheduled to begin this year, the National Roads Authority is likely to disclose the names of the successful bidders shortly.
On a visit to Kilkenny at the weekend, Mr Pinto said that Somague was attracted to Ireland by the transparency of the tendering process for public works contracts "which makes it easy for new players to enter the market". The Government's decision to "spend €9 million a day on transport infrastructure presents an unbelievable opportunity", he said.
Somague, which has overseas interests in Brazil and former Portuguese colonies in Africa, is a division of the Sacyr Vallehermoso Group (SyV), an Iberian conglomerate which is listed on the Madrid stock exchange. It had a turnover of €4.1 billion in 2005.
Somague executives believe that Ireland lacks the internal resources to fully deliver on the National Development Plan and the company has already entered the utility services market in Ireland.
Its Tegael subsidiary won a contract with the ESB in Mayo in 2003. This led to the establishment of an Irish-based company, Gaeltec Utilities Ltd, one of 12 contractors working on the five-year €3.7 billion national programme to refurbish the ESB network system.
The company, whose Irish head office is in Kilkenny, employs 300 people. Some 200 of its staff are Portuguese and many of them work for the ESB in counties Kilkenny, Carlow, Laois, Wicklow and Kildare.
Gaeltec's Irish director, Seán Hannick said the company would also be tendering for projects in the "telecoms, water and waste management areas".
Mr Pinto was among a 100-strong delegation led by the Portuguese Ambassador to Ireland, Mr Paulo de Castilho, which met with local politicians and visited tourist attractions in Kilkenny. Mr Hannick said the visit was also an opportunity "to celebrate the warm welcome the Portuguese workers had received in Ireland".
