Everyone needs a roof over their head – but the building of that roof does not necessarily make for riveting television. So you have to credit RTÉ for coming at the perpetually thorny subjects of soaring property prices and the construction crisis from a new angle. Several angles in fact – because Who’s Building Ireland? (RTÉ One, 9.35pm) is at once a quirky look at the building industry and also a bleak snapshot of a country with its feet clagged in a rising swell of racism.
The going is grim in places. Elkana Mabika is a refugee from Congo – the nexus of one of the most destructive wars of the 21st century, not that you’ll see any hipsters tweeting about it – and is in Ireland training to be a plumber. Ireland needs plumbers – along with tradespeople of every description.
However, Mabika has not encountered much gratitude – or even simple benign indifference. Instead, he had to negotiate not only a long working day and a punishing commute, but also racism from locals. “The people from the town are a little bit racist against us,” he says. “Maybe they want us to leave Ireland or something like that.”
A frosty reception has similarly been reserved for Juan Lopez, who left Colombia after guerrillas kidnapped his brother and is working as a carpenter in Dublin. “They only think immigrants are one type of immigration,” the 50-year-old sighs. “We are paying a lot of taxes. Some people don’t understand.”
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Who’s Building Ireland? is careful not to bite off more than it can handle: it doesn’t drill into the Nimbys’ (Not In My Back Yard) charter that is Irish planning legislation or discuss how we have turned Dublin and Cork, in particular, into endless sprawls, rippling ever outward, with no long-term (or even short-term) planning as to how a country of infinite American-style exurbs is supposed to function.
There are some positive stories, too. Crane operator and TikToker Kate Fahey loves her job and is keen to spread awareness about construction as a viable option for young women leaving school. There is a sting in the tail, though. “The cost of living, never mind trying to find somewhere to live ... we’re constantly working now to try and save for a house,” she says. “You can’t live your life like that. You wish your life away.”
The biggest personality in the film is Lukas Suska, chief executive of the Roofing Cartel – a roofing company with a robust social media presence and its own merch line. Suska is great fun, but he draws a contrast between workers from his native Poland and those in Ireland.
“When a foreigner comes in here to work, he has a wife, he has a family at home, he cannot be dossing around bringing weed to work, not coming to work on Monday,” he says. “Local guys do that.”
He says this with a smile, but his truth bomb is striking. How great it would be if more people in Ireland were prepared to speak honestly and cut through the nonsense that makes day-to-day life here such a struggle. It might help solve the construction crisis: it certainly couldn’t make things any worse.
