Eleven Irish companies, as well as the Construction Industry Federation and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, exhibited on Thursday and Friday in the Sheraton Warsaw Hotel.

With queues starting at 7.30am on Friday, the exhibition opened an hour earlier than its scheduled 11am starting time.

Among those exhibiting was Ireland's biggest construction firm, Siac. Around 15% of the company's 350 staff are non-Irish, and Siac already employs 25 Polish people directly.

General manager John Stack said Siac was focusing on senior staff positions for engineers and quantity surveyors with up to 12 years' experience. "We've had a lot of younger people here, " he said, "but a thinner supply of older ones."

Siac is involved in the M3 project, and Stack said it will need more than 40 more staff members for that. He was seeking more than 10 staff for the widening of the M50.

"All contractors are in the market for senior staff, " Stack added.

Limerick-based Kirby Group Engineering, which has worked on projects including refurbishing Tarbert power station, and which is upgrading the ESB's 38 KV stations, was inundated by more than 1,000 job applicants. It had been scheduled to see just 120 people over two days.

"I'm practically exhausted from the volume of people coming through here, " said Kirby operations director Mike Naughton.

"Yesterday we had to organise group sessions and get an interpreter in. It is unbelievable. People at home are very complacent and they have very high expectations.

These people are looking to get work."

Kirby Group is looking for specialist engineers for its offices in Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Cork.

"We were looking for a portfolio of six senior engineers, " Naughton said. "I was so impressed I'll probably take double that. We're finding that the young engineers are very qualified here.

"We employ 600 people and there is probably a bit of complacency. This will give people a bit of a shake-up."

Kirby Group was prompted to go to Poland in part because of concerns that it may have a "very poor" input of Irish apprentices this year, according to Naughton.

"We've all been hearing that there are the least number of the students doing the leaving certificate, " he said.

"There are more Irish university places than students.

There are young engineers here in Poland with very high qualifications willing to be apprentices."