Mr Paddy O'Donohue, managing director of chartered quantity surveyors Mulcahy McDonagh & Partners, told a function in Dublin last week that despite the current world difficulties, all available data indicated that there would be continuing growth in the construction market during the next five years.

With normalisation returning it would mean an end to problems of scarce labour and spiralling construction costs which had damaged the wider economy in recent years. Over the last five years it was extremely difficult to get construction companies to tender at any sort of reasonable price level or even to tender at all. Exorbitant demands had reduced dramatically and the availability of work had also improved. He predicted that inflation would drop significantly from the 12 per cent per annum in 1999 and 2000.

Mr O'Donohue was presenting his firm's Premier DIT Student Award to Donna O'Malley, who got first place with honours in her quantity surveying class in DIT Bolton Street, Dublin.