{"id":645646,"date":"2026-08-19T15:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T15:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/645646\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T15:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T15:36:14","slug":"metrolink-a-key-target-for-construction-group-sisk-after-forming-joint-venture-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/645646\/","title":{"rendered":"MetroLink a \u2018key target\u2019 for construction group Sisk after forming joint venture \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

MetroLink, the proposed 19km stretch of railway linking Swords to Charlemont in south Dublin, is a \u201ckey target\u201d for construction group Sisk<\/a>, its chief executive Paul Brown has said, and the firm has formed a joint venture to tender for the project. <\/p>\n

Brown declined to identify Sisk\u2019s joint venture partners.<\/p>\n

However, Sisk was named alongside Spanish construction giant Dragados and Irish infrastructure specialist J Murphy & Sons as partners in a joint venture in documents published by the UK department of business and trade last year. The document invited British railway suppliers to attend an information briefing about the MetroLink project.<\/p>\n

Sisk and Dragados have partnered on other large-scale projects, including the construction of 11.9km of twin bore tunnels in London as part of the Elizabeth line railway project. The companies were awarded that \u20ac600 million contract in 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cMetroLink is a key target for us,\u201d Brown told The Irish Times on Wednesday. The Coalition is expected to consider putting out the tenders for the project, which will be constructed in phases, in the autumn with preparatory works potentially getting under way as early as next year.<\/p>\n

Brown was speaking following the publication of Sisk\u2019s 2025 annual results. Operating profits at Sicon Ltd, the main company in the group, surged by more than 37 per cent to \u20ac67 million, despite a slight fall in turnover to \u20ac2.62 billion, which Brown said was a \u201cnon-issue\u201d related to technical matters around how revenues are booked. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne metric we do look at is the hours that we work, and in 2024 and 2025, that was largely similar,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Sisk\u2019s gross profit margin widened significantly from 6 per cent to 7.6 per cent in 2025, the group said. <\/p>\n

The accounts also confirm that the group paid a \u20ac30 million dividend to its shareholders, mostly members of the Sisk family, last year. As previously reported by The Irish Times, this brings to \u20ac51 million the total that the group has paid out in dividends since 2024.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Sisk said its advance order book stands at \u20ac7.2 billion. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing is probably a great optimism here in Ireland around the pipeline,\u201d Brown said, related to the Government\u2019s National Development Plan (NDP). \u201cI think there\u2019ll be an attractiveness to the Irish market that will come, that is coming in 2026, and I think will come in 2027 and 2028,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He said there had been a \u201cslight improvement\u201d in the labour market in the Republic over the past year after a period of tightness. \u201cWe continue to invest heavily in early careers, apprenticeship, graduate programmes,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThat\u2019s one lever that we can pull to try to arrest that [labour shortage] in the shorter to medium term.\u201d<\/p>\n

The construction industry has expressed concern about steeply rising construction materials prices in the wake of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the spiralling conflict in the Gulf region. <\/p>\n

Brown said there were \u201csome challenges in the earlier part of the year\u201d with input prices, but \u201cI think they are settled\u201d somewhat.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, he said Sisk has just recently secured a contract for the next phase of the Adare bypass, which will be an important undertaking for the group this year. The project has \u201ca very specific end date linked to the Ryder Cup\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MetroLink, the proposed 19km stretch of railway linking Swords to Charlemont in south Dublin, is a \u201ckey target\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17,4852,10915,69227],"class_list":["post-645646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-metrolink","tag-national-development-plan","tag-sisk"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117122917202655754","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}