Record spending on public building work through the recession is propping up Northern Ireland`s construction industry, the finance minister has claimed.
Sammy Wilson said local construction firms were being helped through the downturn by the Executive spending £1 million extra a day on projects like school and road construction.
Even with the extra spending, the value of construction output has fallen 5.4% in a year in the first three months of 2009, figures from the Northern Ireland Construction Bulletin showed.
Mr Wilson said that the country`s construction industry had faced a lot of difficulties in some areas, and highlighted a drop in private house building as one factor in declining output.
But the director of Royal Institution of Charted Surveyors, Ben Collins, questioned the efficacy of the extra spending.
“There is significant concern in the industry that the level of investment being announced is not consistent with the experiences of firms on the ground,” he said
