WITH the virtual collapse of the construction industry, machinery continues to flood out of the country. Many companies which specialised in renting out expensive cranes, excavators, JCBs, cement mixers and, of course, scaffolding have been shipping the lot out to Rotterdam where weekly sales attract some of the largest construction firms in Eastern Europe.

Much of the Irish machinery has apparently found its way to Russia, where it is needed to service a buoyant construction industry. At the height of the boom, Jones Lang LaSalleeven went to the bother of regularly counting the number of cranes on the Dublin skyline. In early 2007, the figure came to 77. These days there are few to be seen, apart from a number still sitting on partially completed apartment sites in the suburbs. One businessman who made a good living out of the business in the boom years says that most of the very best equipment has already been exported and that a lot of what remains here is only second rate.