Irish Construction News May 2021

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Ho u s e b u ild e r s ta c k le c lim ate c ha n g e T ip s to p r e p a r e f o r y our nex t PII rene w al 1

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H u s in g f o c u s • S u s ta in a b ilit y • R e tr o f ittin g • Inte r v ie w s • C a s e s tu d ie s Mayo2021

Our 2030 Sustainability Roadmap shows what we have achieved so far and the steps we will take in the decade ahead For more please visit www.johnsiskandson.com

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9 NEWS • • • • • •

National Development Plan review update Construction tender prices increase Construction professional bodies collaborate to address climate crisis First-time-buyer mortgage drawdowns at highest since 2007 Five-year apprenticeship action plan Revised NDP must be delivered through a climate lens

M A IN F E AT UR E S

22 INTER V IE W

16 Delivering housing now and in the future – Quintain, Vision Contracting, Clancy 22 ‘The Sisk Living business model is different to that of a traditional builder’ – Fergal Lalor, Managing Director, Sisk Living 24 Keeping it social – Fiona Cormican, Clúid Housing

CA SE STUDIE S

26 Off-site solutions facilitate timely completion of luxury residential scheme – The Paddock, Vision Contracting 30 Monami scheme one of the first to be completed under Covid-19 Return to Work Safely Protocol – Poplar Row apartments 32 MMD Construction delivers 40 NZEB homes in Kinsale for Clúid Housing – Radharc An tSaile 36 Building along the commuter belt – Abbey Farm Demesne, Weslin Construction 38 Gas Networks Ireland and Cosgrave Group partner to reduce emissions on Dublin scheme – Bridgefield and Pappan Grove

16 M A IN F E AT UR E

OPINION

42 ‘The time is now for our nation’s Public Works Contracts to evolve’ – John FFF O’Brien, Principal Consultant, John Farage O’Brien 46 Professional indemnity insurance: Navigating through the storm – Graeme Tinney, CEO, Griffiths & Armour Europe DAC 48 Adjudication decision enforced: The courts signal support for adjudication – James Golden, Director, Quigg Golden 50 Irish construction has still not realised the full potential of MMC – Michael O’Reilly, Director, O’Connor Sutton Cronin

SEC TOR F OCUS

52 Female students need to know they have a place in engineering 53 ‘It is imperative we use this time to renew and refocus’ – Michael O’Donohoe, President, Hardware Association Ireland

S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y 26 CA SE STUDIE S

54 Enterprise Ireland’s Ready for a Green Future campaign features Irish construction innovators 55 Housebuilders need to act now to take the lead in addressing embodied carbon in future developments – Susan McGarry, Managing Director, Ecocem Ireland 57 Building today, caring for tomorrow – Sinéad Hickey, Head of Sustainability for Ireland and Europe, John Sisk & Son 58 Ecoplant: Leading the way in the green plant hire revolution – Sean Breen. Managing Director, Ecoplant 61 Mercury renews carbon-reduction pledge 62 Construction well placed to help government meet its greenhouse gas emissions reduction plans – Michael Slevin, Director, KSN

6 5 PR ODUC T S A ND SER V ICE S All the latest products and services news

54 S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y

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– Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro smartphone

C o v e r p h o t o : Blackhall Place apartments, Dublin, Vision Contracting. irishconstructionnews 1 May 2021

Urgent

To all Public Works Main Contractors and Sub-Contractors You are all contractors.

You really ought to know all about your contracts.

Covid-19 Delay Compensation Schedule K of the Tender and Schedule EvEnT 3

Carries a ‘Yes’ to Delay and‘Yes’ to Compensation under the PWC

EvEnT 15 Carries a ‘Yes’to Delay but a ‘nO’ to Compensation under the PWC Public Works Employers want you to co-operate and accept that the COvID-19 delays are an EvEnT 15 and therefore you are entitled to no Compensation, and if you agree, then they will pay you an Ex-Gratia pittance in return.

We suspect that is nOt what you contracted with your Public Works Employer.

We suspect that your Public Works Site Operations were suspended by the Employer as an EvEnT 3 for two periods: (1) From March to May 2020 and (2) From January 2021 to May 2021 (still to be determined).

We also suspect that the delay to the Works was nOt caused by the order or other act of a court or other public authority exercising authority under Law. We suspect that the Employer had no alternative but to take immediate action because of the Employer’s express indemnity under Sub-clause 3.5 not cause death, injury or illness of any person caused by the negligence of the Employer.

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John FFF O’Brien, Contract Claims Consultant

(Don’t worry if your Schedule 2D Daily Delay Rate was tendered at xZERO/Day. We understand fully and we suspect that you can still claim your COvID-19 delay costs).

Also, we suspect you were instructed to come back during the “War” and continue the Works under ‘BATTLEFIELD’ conditions and despite being refused your additional costs we strongly suspect this is nOT what you tendered nor were Contracted to do.

With one voice we can succeed. to progress your entitlement contact me today.

info@johnfarageobrien.ie (closing date extended to 30th June 2021)

John Farage O’Brien Dispute Resolution & Contract Consultants

EDITORI AL

From the e d i t o r W PUBLISHER Foundation Media Ltd 1 Northumberland Place, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.

Tel: +353 (0)1 677 3157 EDITOR Robbie Cousins robbie@foundationmedia.ie DESIGN Joanne Birmingham CONTRIBUTORS Barry McCall, John FFF O Brien, Graeme Tinney, James Golden, Eve Cassidy, Susan McGarry, Michael O’Reilly, Michael Slevin.

PRINTER WG Baird Ltd ADVERTISING SALES Joe Connolly joe@foundationmedai.ie Tel: +353 (0)86 396 6158 ADVERTISING AND PROMOTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES To advertise in Irish Construction News or on www.constructionnews.ie, or to request a ratecard or details of promotional opportunities, contact Joe Connolly at joe@foundationmedia.ie CONNECT WITH US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Twitter: @constructionnews.ie Linkedin: Constructionnews.ie Facebook: Constructionnews.ie SIGN UP FOR OUR E-NEWSLET TER To get the latest news, articles and offers related to the Irish construction industry to your inbox sign up to our free e-newsletter at www.constructionnews.ie While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this publication is correct, the publisher cannot not accept responsibility for any errors, omissions or discrepancies. Views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher.

The contents of this publication are copyright. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic (including photocopying) or digital without the prior consent of the publisher.

elcome to the first issue of Irish Construction News, a multiplatform publication designed to keep readers informed on the current and upcoming issues affecting construction in Ireland and up to date on the latest product and service news.

Irish Construction News is brought to you by a highly experienced editorial and journalistic team, who have a combined experience of over 75 years in the specialist area of construction journalism. We also have a panel of leading expert contributors drawn from across the industry to provide insightful analysis.

Irish Construction News is designed to be an interactive publication. You can read the publication in print, online on our website www.constructionnews.ie, or you can also receive key stories through our free e-newsletter, which you can subscribe to at www.constructionnews.ie.

The interactive experience of reading the magazine is enhanced by the fact that many of the articles contain QR codes that, when scanned, will provide access to additional information, related downloads or videos.

Irish Construction News will have a regular focus on sustainability and what the sector is doing to address long term sustainability issues and become more environmentally responsible.

The main focus of this issue of Irish Construction News is housing. Now that another lockdown has ended, how will the housebuilding sector set about getting back on track and moving once again towards the goal of constructing 35,000 residential units a year?

We talk with housebuilders, Vision Contracting, Quintain and Clancy Construction about the impact Covid has had on their operations and how they plan to recover lost ground after over a year of lockdowns. We have an interview with Sisk Living managing director Fergal Lalor in which he discusses Sisk’s unique approach to housebuilding and what he believes should be done to increase housing output in this country.

We discuss the delivery of social housing with Clúid Housing new business director Fiona Cormican, who says that the approved housing body has a pipeline of 3,000 new homes to be delivered before the end of 2022.

We are delighted to have a panel of industry experts writing for us. Graeme Tinney, CEO, Griffiths & Armour, outlines the current situation in the public indemnity insurance market and suggests six things you should consider doing before your next PPI review. Dispute resolution consultant John FFF O’Brien writes that ‘the time is now for Public Works Contracts to evolve’.

Susan McGarry, Managing Director, Ecocem Ireland, writes about how the government’s revised Climate Action Bill has forced a significant rethink on the materials that will go into constructing our future buildings.

Elsewhere in the publication, we have interviews with Michael O’Donohoe, President, Hardware Association Ireland, Sinead Hickey, Head of Sustainability, John Sisk and Son, and hear from electric vehicles and plant entrepreneur and Ecoplant founder Sean Breen about his unique business journey.

We also examine the new ‘ACEI Sustainability Vision and Commitment to Climate Action’ and ask the ACEI Sustainability Committee who developed the vision what impact they hope it will have on how our built environment is constructed and managed.

Finally, we feature several housing case studies from across the country that highlight how construction processes are changing and the growing importance of modern methods of construction.

As this is an interactive publication, your views and input are very important to us. I ask you to take a moment to scan the QR code below and sign up for our free e-newsletter. If you want to receive a printed version of the magazine, email me directly at robbie@foundationmedia.ie If there are any issues or stories you would like to see featured in Irish Construction News, email me at robbie@foundationmedia.ie. I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards Robbie Cousins

Scan to subscribe to free e-newsletter

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Minister says climate change ac tion and regional balance are v i t a l i s s u e s to a ris e in NDP r e v ie w The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Michael McGrath, has published the Phase 1 Report on the Review of the National Development Plan.

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he recently published Phase 1 Report on the Review of the National Development Plan includes macro-economic analysis of public capital expenditure and infrastructure demand analyses. It also focuses on considerations of climate action, housing and planning, and alignment with the National Planning Framework.

The report states that there were 572 submissions received during the public consultation process between November 2020 and February 2021. There was nearconsensus in the submissions on the vital importance of climate action, balanced regional development, and sustainable housing.

Commenting on the report, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Michael McGrath, said: “The revised NDP will set new five-year rolling departmental capital allocations and overall 10-year capital ceilings out to 2030 and support economic, social, environmental, and cultural development all across the country.

“Even as we grapple with the pandemic, the NDP review allows us to map out our shared future. All of the analyses that we have done to date, and all of the feedback we have received from our public consultation process, reinforce the priority commitments set out in the Programme for Government, in particular action on climate change, a desire for strong regional balance and the urgency of providing sustainable housing.

“Capital investment is now at an all-time high of €10.8bn in 2021. This commitment to capital investment acts as an important economic stabiliser and stimulus and will help to underpin business confidence and power our recovery from the Covid-19 emergency.”

“The revised NDP will play an essential role in shaping our responses to the needs of the present and also prepare us for the challenges of the future. I will bring forward the revised NDP for publication later this year.”

NDP REVIEW KEY FINDINGS

• Any increase in public investment to meet demand needs to be sustainable

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over the lifetime of the 10-year plan to reduce risks of over-heating and poor value for money.

In terms of demands, historical trends in public capital investment indicate that most investment has been contained within four sectors; housing, transport, education and health.

While there are demand pressures across all sectors examined, the evidence suggests that housing and climate action are the areas where investment demand is most acute.

While the majority of public investment is focused on infrastructure, the NDP also needs to include investments required for a strong knowledge economy in areas such as enterprise development and R&D. Investment in culture and heritage can also play an important role in regeneration and tourism investment can contribute to Ireland’s economic recovery.

A number of steps will be followed to incorporate climate and wider environmental considerations into the new NDP. These will include assessing sectoral spending proposals against a range of environmental outcomes to ensure their investment priorities are aligned with Ireland’s climate and environmental objectives.

Delivering the right kind of housing in the right locations is critical to the successful delivery of Project Ireland 2040 and thereby underpins the entire plan.

Ensuring the correct balance of prioritisation and sectoral allocations is only one component of the new NDP. Given the capacity challenges and the need to achieve significant structural reform with the resources permitted, there needs to be a renewed focus on delivery through reforms on governance, oversight and implementation.

The recently published Supporting Excellence: Capital Project and Programme Delivery Capability Review (EY; commissioned by the EU Commission’s Structural Reform Support Programme) will assist in providing a

framework to allow more coherent support for public-sector construction and capacity development across all sectors.

• An independent external review of projects over €100m will be introduced at two major decision gates in the project lifecycle (when the preferred delivery option to achieve the objective is chosen and before a decision is taken as to whether or not to approve a project to go to tender).

• In conclusion, the evidence highlights areas where there are emerging and urgent infrastructure gaps which will need to be addressed as part of the 10-year strategy. However, in making decisions as part of Phase 2 and in building for the future, it is important that investment in our economy is well-planned, well-targeted and welldelivered.

To download a copy of the Phase 1 Report on the Review of the National Development Plan, visit www.gov.ie/en/campaigns/09022006project-ireland-2040/ or scan the QR code.

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C lú id p u r c h a s e o f Du b lin a p a r t m e nt s c h e m e is first acquisition in € 54m Legal & G eneral partnership

Blackbanks View, Raheny, Dublin.

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lúid Housing has announced the acquisition of a 40-unit apartment development, Blackbanks View, in Raheny, Dublin. The €18.8m scheme is being delivered in partnership with LGIM Real Assets (Legal & General) and forms part of a larger €54m long-term financing agreement. The announcement sees Clúid welcome over 100 residents to their new homes.

Clúid is one of the largest approved housing bodies (AHBs) in Ireland and the first Irish AHB to secure a financing agreement of

this scale with an international institutional asset manager. With a portfolio of over 8,300 homes across Ireland, Clúid is targeting the delivery of 3,000 new social homes before the end of 2022.

In December 2020, Legal & General announced that it had provided €54m in long-term financing to Clúid, enabling Clúid to deliver more high-quality social homes and provide a socially useful home for pension fund capital.

The announcement sees the first of approximately 200 new social homes delivered as part of the financing agreement and is Legal & General’s first investment in the Irish social housing sector. Clúid’s acquisition of Blackbanks View also marks the arrival of long-term pension fund capital to the AHB sector.

Speaking about the importance of the deal, Fiona Cormican, New Business Director, Clúid, said: “Clúid Housing is committed to delivering good quality social housing, and we are delighted to partner with Legal & General to deliver Blackbanks View. This new financing agreement provides a means for Clúid to scale up our ambitious targets and deliver homes for the most vulnerable in our society.”

Steve Bolton, Head of Corporate Debt, Europe, LGIM Real Assets, said that the company is delighted to continue to expand its business in Ireland, as well as its investments in affordable housing, bringing much needed long-term pension fund capital to the sector.

“The delivery of these new homes demonstrates the continued momentum of LGIM Real Assets’ partnership with Clúid,” Steve Bolton commented. “Since announcing the financing in December 2020, Clúid has already delivered the first tranche of new social homes and welcomed over 100 residents.

G r e e n l o a n r a t e for HPI-certified housing

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ome Building Finance Ireland (HBFI) has launched a new green loan product offering a discount of up to 0.5% on loans to homebuilders for developments certified with the Irish Green Building Council’s Home Performance Index (HPI).

The HBFI green funding product is “the first Irish green financial product fully aligned to the Paris Agreement and EU taxonomy regulations,” the Irish Green Building Council said in a statement. All residential projects must be certified to the HPI standard to qualify for the discounted product.

The Irish Green Building Council developed the HPI as the first comprehensive sustainability certification for new Irish homes. So far, 3,250 homes have been registered for certification to date. The certification goes well beyond BERs to address the broader environmental impacts of new homes to include the production of building materials, impact on ecology, pollution, water consumption and flood risk, while the scheme also recognises the passive house standard.

It also encourages homebuilders to improve the health of new homes by

The government’s recent public-private partnership (PPP) package of social housing includes a housing scheme built by John Sisk & Sons at Convent Lands, Wicklow town, certified to the Home Performance Index. installing mechanical ventilation, improving daylighting and acoustics, and minimising harmful chemicals, such as radon and VOCs. The partnership has been developed as part of the SMARTER Finance for Families initiative, funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme.

“We recognise the importance of sustainability in the delivery of new homes, and with that in mind, we are delighted to have launched the green funding product,

which provides a discount of up to 0.5% on the loan rate that would normally be charged for projects that are certified to the HPI or an equivalent standard,” read a statement from HBFI. “We encourage any builders/ developers seeking funding for residential projects to contact HBFI directly for further information.”

For more visit www.hbfi.ie/products/greenfunding, or www.homeperformanceindex.ie.

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“ R e a lig n m e n t o f P la n n in g L e g is la t io n u r g e n t ly r e q u ir e d t o d e liv e r f o r C lim a t e A c t io n ” – Irish Planning Institute

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ollowing the publication of the Climate Actions and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill (2021) by the government, Dr Conor Norton, President, Irish Planning Institute (IPI), highlighted the need for a rapid realignment of planning legislation, policy and plans.

“New legislation and policy for climate action will need to fully align and integrate with planning policy and plans at all levels including county development plans, local area plans and planning schemes such as strategic development zones,” Dr Norton said.

He added that the planning profession has long warned about the problems of Ireland’s settlement strategy and the implications of rural housing for climate change, as well as the associated problems for communities, transport and place-making.

“Project Ireland 2040, through the National Planning Framework and the National Development Plan, clearly points to the spatial planning policies required to address the challenges of climate change.

Any new climate action strategy must align with the National Planning Framework and spatial plans at regional, county and local level.”

Dr Norton believes an in-depth review of all planning policy and national guidelines for plan-making and development management is now required so spatial plans and decisions around planning applications effectively deliver for climate action.

He says that the new Office of the Planning Regulator will have a critical role to play in the climate-proofing of the next generation of plans and that professional planners need to prepare for changes in the strategic planning options that may be available to them, such as permitting development on greenfield land.

“Climate action means that investment priorities, such as road infrastructure and rural housing policies, must be reviewed.

Planners should welcome climate action as an opportunity as well as a challenge to their work. Ultimately, planning for climate action has the potential to deliver tangible positive benefits for local communities,

Dr Conor Norton, President, Irish Planning Institute. making them more accessible, providing community infrastructure and delivering the right housing in the right area. Many of the actions needed for climate action already align with good place-making and solid urban design principles.” Dr Norton concluded.

C o ns tr u c tio n te n d e r p ric e s in c r e a s e d by 1.3% in the second half of 2020

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he latest Tender Price Index (TPI) published by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) shows that construction price inflation increased by just 1.3% in the second half of 2020, a modest increase on the 0.9% recorded in the previous six months.

According to the SCSI’s index, this brought the national annual rate of inflation to 2.2%, significantly below the pre-Covid tenderprice inflation level of 6.3% in 2019.

While the highest rate of inflation in H2 2020 was recorded in Connacht Ulster at 2.1%, the lowest was in Leinster, excluding Dublin, at 0.5%. The rate in Dublin and Munster was 1.5% and 1.1%, respectively.

The survey, which is based on a combination of a member

Construction Tender Prices (2010 – 2020).

sentiment survey and tender returns, was conducted in February when construction activity was halted.

Tomás Kelly, Chairperson, SCSI Quantity Surveying Group, said that the figures reflected the massive impact Covid-19 was continuing to have on the construction sector.

“While national tender price Tomás Kelly, Chairperson, inflation had begun to moderate SCSI Quantity Surveying in late 2019, Covid-19 quickly Group. became the dominant issue leading to a further reduction in these figures in H1 2020. While the second half of 2020 saw a slight upward shift in tender inflation sentiment, this was largely due to the reopening of the sector following the easing of Covid restrictions during the summer. From then until Christmas our members reported that the sector was highly active with many public and private projects advancing to tender and contract stages.”

The TPI is the only independent assessment of construction tender prices in Ireland. It is compiled by the quantity surveying members of the SCSI. The TPI is based largely on sentiment returns with actual tender returns included in the calculations. The TPI is for non-residential projects during the period in question. It is based on predominately new build projects with values in excess of €0.5m and covers all regions of Ireland.

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S u s t a i n a b i l i t y c o n f e r e n c e brings toge ther professional bodies to address climate crisis

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he recent “Building Collaboration for Climate Action” conference brought together the five construction professional groups to address sustainability from a construction perspective. Leading architects, engineers, planners and surveyors organised the virtual conference to start the process of collaborating to address the climate change challenge.

The conference was co-hosted by the Association of Consulting Engineers of Ireland (ACEI), Engineers Ireland, the Irish Planning Institute (IPI), the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI), and the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland.

The topics addressed were “Creating the Circular Economy for the Built Environment”, “Reimagining the Sustainable City”, and “The Green Future of Buildings”.

Speakers included Eamon Ryan, Minister for Transport, Environment, Climate and Communications; Stephen Willacy, who until recently was chief city architect at Aarhus City Council in Denmark; and Marie Donnelly, Chairperson, The Climate Change Advisory Council.

Micheál Mahon, President, SCSI, said that a warning from the International Energy Agency that global carbon dioxide emissions are set for their second-biggest increase in history as economies recover from the Covid-19 pandemic underlined the seriousness of the environmental situation.

“Individuals and organisations working across the built environment have to review how their actions impact the environment,” Micheál Mahon said. “Recently, the Sustainability Group within the SCSI launched an initiative called “Surveyors Declare”, whereby

members and firms commit to following sustainable business practices in their day-to-day operations.”

David McHugh, President, ACEI, said that there is a clear sense of urgency and noted that all the construction professional bodies had independently placed sustainability front and centre of their plans.

“There have been huge changes in the sustainability space, driven by policy at EU and national level as well as public opinion,” David McHugh said. “There is also an increased awareness amongst construction professionals and contractors, as well as project investors.

The time is now for construction professionals to come together and take up the opportunity to make the required changes happen by working with their clients to put sustainability at the heart of every building project from the earliest point in a project.”

First-time -buyer mortgage drawdowns a t h ig h e s t Q1 le v e ls s in c e 2 0 0 7

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ccording to the latest figures from the Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI), a total of 9,091 new mortgages to the value of €2.142bn were drawn down by borrowers during Q1 2021. This, according to the BPFI, was the most drawdowns approved in Q1 of any year since 2009 and represents an increase of 4.5% in volume and 7.3% in value on the corresponding first quarter of 2020. Firsttime buyers (FTBs) remained the single largest market segment by volume (51.9%) and by value (50.8%).

The figures are reported in the latest BPFI Mortgage Drawdowns Report for Q1 2021 and the BPFI Mortgage Approvals Report for March 2021.

New properties (including self-builds) accounted for only 23.2% of property purchase/build mortgages in Q1 2021, down from 28.5% in Q1 2020 and the smallest share since Q4 2016.

Also, according to the BPFI, a total of 4,324 mortgages were approved in March 2021 – some 2,394 were for FTBs (55.4%) of total volume) while mover purchasers accounted for 924 (21.4%).

10 irishconstructionnews May 2021

Brian Hayes, Chief Executive, Banking & Payments Federation Ireland.

The number of mortgages approved in March rose by 18.4% month-on-month and

by 15.8% year-on-year. Mortgages approved in March 2021 were valued at €1.064bn – of which FTBs accounted for €608m (57.2%) and €260m by mover purchasers (24.5%).

The value of mortgage approvals rose by 17.9% month-on-month and by 21% yearon-year.

Speaking on the publication of the data, Brian Hayes, Chief Executive, BPFI, said: “Our latest mortgage drawdowns and approvals data for Q1 2021 is showing a very strong performance considering that level 5 Covid restrictions were in place for the entire first quarter of this year. This was in contrast to the same period last year when the market was functioning as per normal as Covid restrictions really only came into effect at the end of March 2020. During Q1 2021, we have seen the highest number of Q1 drawdowns of any year since 2009, with first-time buyer drawdown volumes at their highest Q1 levels since 2007. Similarly, we have seen strong growth in approvals which are up 7.8% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2020. This shows a strong pipeline for future demand as we move into the latter part of the year.”

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G overnment publishes f i v e -y e a r a c tio n p la n f o r a p p r e ntic e s h ip

Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris.

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he government has launched its fiveyear ‘Action Plan for Apprenticeship 2021-2025’. The action plan sets out a five-year strategy to deliver on a Programme for Government commitment to reach 10,000 new apprentice registrations a year by 2025.

The plan provides a roadmap to a single apprenticeship system and new supports for employers and apprentices.

In the plan, the government commits to: • Creating a National Apprenticeship

Office to drive reforms • Providing a grant for employers, with a top-up grant for areas of identified national skills needs and/or targeted recruitment of underrepresented groups such as female apprentices, or loneparents, people with disabilities, or members of the Travelling community • Providing non-financial supports targeted to SMEs in areas such as recruitment and supervision of apprentices • Targeting for the public sector to take on apprentices and to create cross-sector apprentices • Examining the potential development of new cross-border apprentice programmes and support apprentice engagement in international programmes such as Erasmus.

Launching the action plan, the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris, said: “People learn in different ways, and I want to make sure that everyone is aware apprenticeship can be for them as a route to

a qualification into the future.

“The overall apprentice population will grow to over 30,000 registered apprentices in the next five years. In particular, we want to ensure equal access for everyone to apprenticeships, irrespective of their background, gender or age. We have listened to businesses and employers too and will introduce further supports to make it easier to take on an apprentice and offer you the financial support to do so. This plan has the potential to transform this part of our thirdlevel system. Apprenticeship is good for the learner and the employer.”

The goal of the Action Plan for Apprenticeship 2021-2025 is to fully embed apprenticeship as an option within the national education and training system, transforming apprenticeship from a wellestablished route to a career in niche areas (the craft professions) to a well-established route to a broad range of careers and which is attractive to employers and learners.

The government intends that by 2025, apprenticeship will sit firmly within the broader education and training landscape as a core offering.

Six ty-third student com ple tes T U D u b l i n p r e -a p p r e n t i i c e s h i p p r o g r a m m e

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he Access to Apprenticeship (ATA) programme at TU Dublin has launched a new “Digital Badge Award for Employers” initiative.

The Digital Badge is awarded to companies to recognise their contribution to the ATA programme and its mission to promote access, diversity and inclusion in craft apprenticeships.

Thirty companies from across the construction, motor, aviation, manufacturing, engineering and electrical industries received the award during a graduation event for the ATA class of 2020.

DIVERSIT Y AND INCLUSION

At the online event, Simon Harris TD, Minister for Further and Higher Education, gave a keynote address to students, apprentices and employers, before Patrick Atkinson, CEO, Chadwicks Group and Chairperson of the ATA Programme, formally launched the initiative.

The chairperson said that at the heart of the ATA programme is the mission for diversity and inclusion.

“The goal is to create access to skilled employment through craft apprenticeships

for young people, particularly young women,” Patrick Atkinson stated. “Since 2018, 63 young people have graduated on this programme, including eight young women. The programme demonstrates a true collaboration between community, educators and industry.”

Bobby Maher, Manager, ATA, said that the apprentices on the programme showed remarkable resilience in overcoming many challenges that Covid-19 presented for them and thanked employers for their continued backing of the unique programme.

ACCESS TO APPRENTICESHIP DIGITAL BADGE AWARDS

“The Digital Badge Award is a small acknowledgement of your huge contribution to our success,” Bobby Maher said.

Maher took the opportunity to remember the late Dave Treacy of John Sisk & Son, who died in recent months, “as a great friend of the programme who epitomised everything that is noble about apprenticeship.”

ACCESS TO APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAMME

The ATA programme is for young men and

women aged 16 to 24 living in Dublin who experience social and economic barriers and aims to help them progress into an apprenticeship training programme.

PROGRAMME SUPPORTERS

Companies involved in construction and engineering activities that received Digital Badges include John Sisk & Son, John Paul Construction, Designer Group, Jones Engineering, Mercury, Lambstongue, Flynn, Winthrop, Tritech Engineering, Hilti, Kent, BA Steel, Brendan Buggy Steel Fabrication, Shelbourne Engineering and CJK Engineering.

irishconstructionnews 11 May 2021

12 irishconstructionnews May 2021

PROCORE

Why real-time insights can p r o v id e a c o m p e titiv e edge for contractors Brandon Oliveri-O’Connor, Senior Director of EMEA, Procore, outlines what real-time insights can be accessed and used to gain visibility of an entire construction life cycle as well as overall business performance.

Y

ou only need to look at the last year to see that the construction industry isn’t afraid of embracing change.

The adoption of groundbreaking technologies that have disrupted, accelerated and catalysed innovation have enabled many companies to continue and improve upon how they work.

One area emerging to help construction companies make better informed decisions is through measuring visibility of performance— that is, real-time insights which can be accessed and used to gain visibility of an entire construction life cycle as well as overall business performance.

With construction companies and their projects producing mountains of data and insights just waiting to be used, it’s time for the industry to put all to good use, as only then can more informed decisions be made. Real-time insights are crucial to a business’ success. For instance, they can show how many days a particular trade takes to resolve snags and help project managers identify the best partners to work with in order to maximise profits—helping to deliver the best quality of work, and avoid delays.

So, how can real-time insights be accessed and put to good use? It’s all about finding a way to better connect stakeholders, processes and data in a way that is clear and insightful. To achieve this, the industry needs to move away from siloed systems, towards platforms which can connect the dots and offer value. Only then will the industry be able to work smarter and unlock the greatest level of performance.

The benefits of accessing and using real-time insights are endless.

In fact, our commissioned research found that every manager, on average, saves nearly a full day’s work (4.5 hours) each week, while businesses as a whole save £256,000 per year. In contrast, those without visibility of performance lose 3.5 hours each week, at a cost of £265,000 per year.

But, the advantages of real-time insights are not just focused on time and money—quality and safety are also two areas which can be improved. Almost half of those surveyed (49%) registered fewer defects and 47 per cent felt visibility helped support their compliance with standards such as ISO 9001/45001.

Using platform technology to reinvent traditional construction

processes for tasks such as snag lists or RFIs can help companies to gain a competitive edge. BW: Workplace Experts is an example of a company that has done this well, using a single platform approach to build a bank project information which they can use to draw insights from to inform future project decisions.

For Conack Construction, one of Ireland’s leading construction firms, and a participant on the high-profile Cherrywood project in Dublin, leveraging real-time insights through a platform has helped the firm extract valuable insights from static data. Brid Mullane, CDE Manager says: “By implementing a CDE platform company-wide, we have been able to ensure that all data collected is accurate, timely, and encompasses the whole scope of our projects. We can then analyse the data, predict outcomes and make informed real time decisions to best suit the requirements of that project.”

Download Procore’s latest research report, ‘What gets measured gets managed’ visit www.procore.com/en-gb/ebooks/what-gets-measuredgets-managed or scan the QR code at the end of this article Given the wealth of benefits real-time insights provide, it is no surprise that construction companies are striving to achieve a clearer and more accurate visibility of performance. It’s time to look to the future as we head towards a new era of smarter construction. The adoption of the right technology to gain access to and use real-time insights will transform the construction industry—making it more efficient and profitable. Thanks to saving time and money and boosting quality and safety, hospitals may become less expensive to build, houses more time-efficient, and schools more cost-effective. A brighter future of construction is a brighter future for everyone.

irishconstructionnews 13 May 2021

14 irishconstructionnews May 2021

NE WS Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Michael McGrath.

Public Expenditure Minister says capital allocations will be maintained to support counter-cyclical fiscal policy”

ACEI Conference to ld r e v is e d NDP must be de livered through a climate lens

A

t this year’s ACEI annual conference, delegates were presented with a summary of the initial findings of Review to Renew the review of the National Development Plan (NDP) and were told that the revised NDP must be delivered through a “climate lens”.

At the virtual conference, Áine Griffin, Director of Communications, Project Ireland 2040, said 569 submissions were made, including 325 individual submissions and 117 from organisations, groups, and NGOs. She said the consistent themes that emerged were Climate Action, Balanced Regional Development, Sustainable Housing, and Transport.

EMERGING NDP THEMES

“The emerging themes also include Enterprise, ‘Skills and Innovation Capacity’, ‘Tourism Connectivity’ including airports and ports, health water infrastructure, ‘The All-Ireland Perspective’, ‘Remote Working’, ‘Sports’, and ‘Culture and Heritage’,” Áine Griffin explained.

She added that a detailed summary of the submissions received would be included in the phase one report of the NDP, which will be completed by the end of spring.

Expanding on the initial findings, she said, “there was a consensus that the revised NDP must be delivered through a climate lens.

“Active consideration was urged towards appropriate design policy and funding mechanisms to support sustainable investment and support end-users in moving away from fossil fuels. Many submissions highlighted the view that funding should be prioritised for key regional projects that will drive regional employment and enterprise growth, allowing regions to act as a counterbalance to Dublin and the east coast. On sustainable housing development,

Áine Griff in, Director of Communications, Project Ireland 2040. support for the delivery of housing and enabling infrastructure on key sites – both urban and rural – that contribute to compact growth targets in regional growth centres was requested. For transport, in the main, submissions sought support for the interregional and intraregional national road network and the maintenance and enhancement of the regional and local road network. Investment should also be focused on maintaining, upgrading and expanding rail infrastructure, allowing for more frequent and faster rail journeys for the most potential passengers and freight transport.

A significant proportion of submissions expressed a desire to enhance cycling and pedestrian infrastructure.”

PLAN FOR POPULATION GROWTH

In the keynote address Michael McGrath, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, said that in the next 20 years, the population of Ireland is set to increase by an additional one million people, raising a series of

important questions, including where will all these people live and work, what kind of quality of life will we each enjoy, and how a country of almost six million people will impact on our communities, and our built and natural environment.

“The Government wants to ensure that we have the appropriate infrastructure to meet the needs of an increased population.

This will be challenging, but it is also a great opportunity to imagine and implement a shared vision of building a better Ireland for all its people and for future generations.”

The Minister added: “Public investment in construction in Ireland has remained among the highest in the EU despite Covid-19. Additional capital expenditure was provided in direct response to Covid in the July stimulus package last year, and the government has also committed over €10bn for capital projects in 2021, the highest provision for investment in the history of the state, in recognition of the important role for capital investment. This is a clear signal that, unlike in previous crises, capital allocations will be preserved and maintained to support counter-cyclical fiscal policy.”

The Minister said that major projects due to be completed in 2021 include the North Runway Project and new Visual Tower at Dublin Airport; Luas Green Line Capacity Enhancement; Technological University Dublin at Grangegorman; Maynooth University Technology Society and Innovation Building; Cork Lower Harbour Main Drainage Project; Vartry Water Supply Scheme Upgrade; Ringaskiddy Port Facilities Redevelopment and the N4 Collooney to Castlebaldwin.

The conference was facilitated and delivered by Crowdcomms. Conference sponsors were Autodesk and Griffiths & Armour.

irishconstructionnews 15 May 2021

MAI N FE ATURE

De liv e rin g h o u s in g now and in th e future A number of leading housebuilders speak with Barry McCall about the impact of Covid-19 and the issues that need to be addressed if the government’s ambitious housing targets are to be met.

Blackhall Street apartments in Dublin by Vision Contracting.

I

t might seem hard to believe but less than 15 years ago the biggest fears in relation to housing in this country were rampant price inflation and over-supply. Only a decade ago, we were faced with the spectacle of “ghost estates”, with many commentators predicting that Ireland would be dealing with a housing surplus for generations.

The speed with which the economy and the housing market righted themselves took even the optimists by surprise, with surfeit quickly turning into deficit. Homelessness and house price affordability became key electoral issues, and a variety of government initiatives were launched to revive housing construction and support homebuyers.

GOVERNMENT HOUSING TARGETS

Fergal Lalor, Managing Director, Sisk Living.

16 irishconstructionnews May 2021

The government target is for 35,000 new homes to be delivered each year, with around 10,000 of them falling into the social and affordable categories. Progress was being made until Covid hit. The industry was shut down for eight weeks in the spring and early summer of 2020, while many potential homebuyers were spooked by the economic fallout of the pandemic.

New home delivery fell slightly to 20,780 in 2020. This was a drop of just 411 on the number built in 2019. With large parts of the industry shut down again during the early part of 2021, this will have a knock-on effect on completions this year. But the industry was resilient in 2020, and it is hopeful of making up for lost time in 2021, despite some non-Covid related challenges.

One of the more recent entrants to the Irish housing market is Quintain. It was formally established in this country in 2019, although its roots date back to 2013 when joint managing partners Michael Hynes and Eddie Byrne worked for Hudson Advisors, Lone Star’s asset management unit.

Michael Hynes explains that there was nothing happening at the time, saying the country “was just moving out of the global financial crisis. Lone Star Funds was one of the more prolific buyers of loan books at the time.”

Quintain worked through the loan books to stabilise and maximise the value of the assets. It partnered with Cairn Homes to acquire the €500m Project Clear from Ulster Bank in 2016.

“That was a good fit and we split the

MAI N FE ATURE

Michael Hynes. Joint Managing Partner, Quintain. portfolio between us,” says Hynes. “We took Adamstown, Clonburris, and Portmarnock.

Then, we teamed up with Castlethorn and Ballymore to develop those sites.”

Hynes and Byrne were in advanced preparations for an IPO for the Irish business when the market took at turn for the worse as a result of the Brexit vote and the incipient global trade wars. It was initially decided to postpone the IPO and then to abandon it altogether. Lone Star had acquired Quintain in the UK and decided to bring the company to Ireland under the leadership of Hynes and Byrne.

“That was 2018 and the idea of diversifying into Ireland made sense,” Hynes notes. “We bought a Cherrywood site at the same time and set up Quintain Ireland in 2019. I don’t think many companies in the development space started out with a pipeline of 9,000 homes. We started with a landbank fully formed. Our biggest challenge was growing from seven to 45 people in a very short period of time. Getting the right people with an economy running at such a fast pace was tough. We are aiming to go from zero to 1,500 homes a year within four years. We have the sites and a supportive shareholder. It’s a very exciting time despite Covid.”

Roy Murray, Contracts Manager, Clancy Construction.

Colm Fehily, Director, Vision Contracting.

COVID-19 IMPACT

Covid has been a real challenge.

“Like every company, we had to make the switch to working remotely. From a construction perspective, the first lockdown closed the industry for around eight weeks,” he continues. “The industry did a great job bringing in a standard operating procedure for Covid. As far as I can see, adherence to the guidelines was almost universal. There have been a very small number of cases across the whole industry.”

That track record paid dividends when the industry remained open during the second lockdown in 2020.

“The industry has clearly demonstrated that it was not a major contributor to the spread of the disease. Then the country got hit really hard in December. Nobody expected that. It was so severe that the whole country shut down.”

Michael Hynes says that the industry could have remained open.

“Ireland was the only country in Europe in full lockdown. I don’t think it was necessary.

A large part of our workforce is international and many of them have moved back home.

Are they going to come back to Ireland? The workforce needs answers and security if they are going to come back. If they don’t, the industry won’t have the capacity to deliver

Quintain’s Dún Sí, Marnock’s Bay, Portmarnock .

irishconstructionnews 17 May 2021

MAI N FE ATURE “We work in a broad mix of areas including pharma, healthcare, commercial, residential, industrial and utilities,” explains Colm Fehily, Director, Vision Contracting.

“Our annual construction business turnover had been increasing year on year and was forecast to exceed €70m before Covid and the related government restrictions shut the industry down last year. This directly impacted on our construction operations, with 2020 revenues reducing to €60m or thereabouts. Our approach has always been to focus on steady and sustainable growth.

When we started out in business, there was not much residential activity between 2011 and 2014, but it has come back into focus in the last two to three years.”

Vision Contracting is currently on site on several private residential developments, but one of the key challenges is costs.

DELIVERY COSTS

“The main issue at the moment is the cost of delivery of homes,” says Fehily adds. “We are incurring significant raw materials price rises. We also have a lot of third-party costs and levies, utilities connections and fees to factor in as well. The market has to take this into account. The tightening of the mortgage rules also makes it more difficult.”

PLANNING CHALLENGES

3D model of Quintain’s plans for Cherrywood ViIlage, Dublin. housing targets.”

Roy Murray, Contracts Manager, Clancy, agrees.

“It’s very confusing when you look at the risk analysis,” Murray comments. “How can greenfield work, out in the open, be more of a risk than houses closer to finishing when all the work is indoors. It didn’t make sense in terms of a risk mitigation measure.”

Clancy took advantage of the shutdown to stand back and look at various aspects of its processes, from design through procurement, to pricing, subcontract awards and so on.

“One benefit was more time to look at these things and get some value engineering out of it,” Murray explains.

The impact of the closure will be felt, but the overall effect is hard to measure.

“It is very hard to take three or four months out of the year and then deliver the same level of output within the new timeframe,” he adds. “It’s just not going to happen. But we are on the better side in terms of the weather for calendar year. We don’t get the best weather during January, February, and March. We may be able to accelerate construction in the coming months.”

Vision Contracting will celebrate its tenth anniversary in business in August.

18 irishconstructionnews May 2021

Planning delays are another issue.

“We applied for one development in January 2019, and between the local authority and An Bord Pleanála, we were finally granted permission in October 2020,” Fehily says. “It’s taking maybe three months longer because of Covid impacts, but it’s still a 12–15-month process with associated costs. New building regulations and design standards have added to the cost base as well. Outside of the Dublin market, it is difficult to make apartment development stack up. The costs involved make the end product expensive, and market prices outside of Dublin do not make this type of development feasible from our perspective.”

“Planning is very slow process,” says Clancy’s Roy Murray. “It can take years for developers to get to a shovel-ready stage.

Dealing with utilities can also be slow and it can take anything up to six months to get a connection offer.”

SKILLS SHORTAGES

The shortage of skills and talent is another issue highlighted by Murray.

“There is a real shortage of design people coming out of college,” he says. “It is really hard to get engineers, nigh on impossible actually. We are still suffering from the vacuum left by the last recession, when architects and engineers weren’t being produced. The students who started in 2015, when work started to come back, are only starting to come out now. They only

MAI N FE ATURE have one or two years’ experience. That’s a real struggle for the industry. We need a real investment in professional roles for the future.”

Adequate trades and labour resources are going to be a major issue in the years ahead, according to Vision Contracting’s Colm Fehily. He points to a shortage of people coming through with a traditional trades background.

“I don’t think enough is being done here.

The industry and the educational bodies as a whole, should be doing more. In 10 years’ time, the trades persons coming through now will be in a very good position to take senior positions in firms. There are a large percentage of secondary school students who are not sure what to do with their careers and the industry needs to do more to promote itself to them. We need to compete against the other sectors and industries to attract and retain more students and younger persons. We can do this by getting more involved at secondary school level, raising the profile and awareness of the building industry and explaining the training and the strong career opportunities that are readily available for all trades and labour disciplines involved.

“We also need to continue to attract more third-level graduates, but we need to invest in trade-based apprenticeships and to put this on a par with the focus on third level education,” adds Fehily.

The industry image needs to change.

“The perception of construction remains one of long hours in dirty and wet conditions,” he continues. “That’s just not the case. The industry has come on so much.

Health and safety standards are among the best of any sector. The bar is now very high for health and safety, site welfare and environmental standards. It’s all about the education of students in school. They need to know that the pay and conditions and prospects in our industry are as good as you will get anywhere.”

Fehily adds, “Carpenters and blocklayers are taking home as much if not more money than their friends who spend years in college. There are huge opportunities to progress in this industry.”

POSITIVE OUTLOOK

The overall mood is positive, however, as noted by Quintain’s Michael Hynes.

“During the first lockdown people were wondering about prices and the economy.

They saw reports from KBC and Davy and others signposting big falls, and some of them held back. They quickly saw that this was very different to the global financial crisis and we are now in an acute undersupplied market. The savings ratio has gone up and money is still available across all levels and that is supporting very strong buyer demand.”

Carraig Court, Blackrock , Cork , by Clancy.

Bloomfield, a development of 154 unit developed by Clancy Homes and built by Clancy Construction.

Indeed, Quintain has 7,000 expressions of interest from potential buyers for homes it has planned and it recently sold 60 houses through a virtual online sale.

“Some people are regretting not buying last year,” Hynes adds. “We are seeing equally strong demand across all buyer types, including first-time buyers, trader uppers, and trader downers. We have lost a lot of time this year, but as an industry we will work to address supply issues. The housing minister is less than a year in the job and he knows one of the biggest problems is supply. He has extended the ‘Help to Buy’ scheme and that is helping people to get a deposit together. It has improved access to mortgages. He is also looking to bring in a shared equity scheme for people that need a bit more than the Help to Buy scheme. He is also trying to introduce schemes to increase supply.”

The message is quite clear. The challenges faced by the industry when it comes to delivering housing remain the same as they were before Covid – building costs, lending rules, planning delays, design regulations, utility delays, skills shortages, and others besides. However, there is a sense that progress can made on these issues and a belief that government targets can be met.

irishconstructionnews 19 May 2021

The Grant eLearning Academy

Scan the w QR code belo and register today!

Grant Product Training. Anytime. Anywhere.

Our new online learning platform has been developed for architects, BERs, specifiers, engineers and those working in the building trade. Courses are completed virtually and will help you get to know our heating products.

Courses include an RIAI & RIBA approved CPD course on the Aerona3 R32 air to water, air source heat pump.

20 irishconstructionnews May 2021

For further information and to register visit the professional section of our website or scan the QR code above for direct access to the registration form.

www.grantengineering.ie

GRANT

G rant launches n e w eL e a rn in g A c a d e m y Continuing to lead the industry, heating technology manufacturer Grant has launched its new eLearning Academy for those working in the plumbing and heating, architectural and construction sectors in Ireland.

T

he new online learning platform currently features health and safety advice and a CPD (continued professional development) course, available to architects, engineers and BER assessors.

Further Grant product and installation focused courses will be available in the coming weeks. The course portfolio is suitable for plumbers, installers, BER assessors, architects, specifiers, engineers, electricians, merchants and builders.

Renowned for its high-quality training, the launch of the eLearning platform is another step forward in demonstrating Grant’s commitment to innovation in providing on-demand training and resources to those interested in continuous learning.

Having welcomed those working in the trade and the construction sector to its dedicated training facilities in Birr, Co Offaly for many years, Grant will continue to provide onsite training, once government guidelines allow, with the new virtual training offering working alongside this to provide a hybrid solution for participants.

Commenting on the launch of the Grant eLearning Academy, Keith Scully, Grant Technical Sales and eLearning Academy trainer, said: “Having worked on the development of the new eLearning Academy for the last year, we are delighted to now see it up and running. Operating on its own

a catalogue of both on-demand and instructor-led courses, which vary in both content and form, allowing those in the trade to tailor their training to best suit their requirements. On-demand courses will enable students to work through the content at their own pace at a time that is right for them. Whereas the instructor-led courses will feature real-time tuition provided by one of Grant’s dedicated technical trainers. In addition, the eLearning Academy is also the home of other useful resources, including various news articles and guides to help heating professionals further their learning beyond the virtual classroom.

Grant Technical Sales and eLearning Academy trainer Keith Scully.

Visit www.grantengineering.ie or scan the QR code below for more information on Grant’s eLearning Academy and sign up via the registration form.

dedicated platform, each course and resource has been carefully developed to the highest standard. It has always been a key priority to provide our dedicated network of installers, engineers and plumbers, to name just a few, with all the necessary training they need to help advance their skills and knowledge on our industry and our innovative product range.”

The Grant eLearning Academy features

irishconstructionnews 21 May 2021

MAI N FE ATURE

‘ T h e S i s k L i v i n g b u s i n e s s m o d e l i s d i ff e r e n t t o t h a t o f a t r a d i t i o n a l b u i l d e r -d e v e l o p e r ’ FERGAL LALOR, Managing Director, Sisk Living, speaks with Barry McCall about current factors affecting the house-building market and why the Sisk Living business model ideally places it to deliver social and affordable homes.

‘Along with the construction improvement, overlapping could bring the delivery period down to 22 months or a 35% improvement’

Fergal Lalor, Managing Director, Sisk Living.

22 irishconstructionnews May 2021

S

isk is one of the best-known names in Irish residential construction.

The Sisk company has been building homes and communities for the past five decades, and up until the Covid pandemic, it has been completing some 1,500 residential units every year and making a significant contribution to the state’s social and affordable housing targets in the process.

Sisk established Sisk Living over four years ago to focus on low-rise residential projects.

“We have a strong bias towards social and affordable housing,” says Sisk Living managing director Fergal Lalor. “We are a contract builder, and we do not expose ourselves to development risk. Our clients are in the main approved housing bodies, local authorities or private-sector providers of social and affordable housing, or private rental sector (PRS). As a contract builder, we are focused on delivering at scale and speed for those clients.”

SISK LIVING BUSINESS MODEL

“The Sisk Living business model is different to that of a traditional builder-developer,” he explains. “Many companies who self-develop deliver at the pace of market absorption,” Lalor explains. “They will build 20 units at a time or whatever suits. We go in and deliver a scheme at scale, whether that’s 80, 100 or 200 units at a time. We are focused on clients who like that approach. That typically suits local authorities, approved housing bodies, private-sector providers and so on.

Once the decision is made to move ahead with a development following the design and planning process and other preparatory elements, they want delivery now. It suits our business model to do that.”

The pipeline of social and affordable housing is improving at present, with greater visibility into the future as well.

“We can see almost 3,000 units in the procurement pipeline at the moment, which we haven’t seen in the past, but as the plan is to build up to 9,000 social and affordable units this year, we still have a way to go,” says Lalor.

“There are a variety of projects being brought to the market, such as the Killinarden and Old White Church Road schemes by South Dublin County Council and Cork City Council, respectively, where the developer of the social, affordable and some cases the private scheme are brought

to planning by the economic operator on a licence on state lands,” he adds.

“The challenge for a contract builder like ourselves is that when you are waiting for the proverbial bus, they all come along at once.”

HOUSING MARKET TRENDS

There are positive trends in the market as well, with the introduction of a greater mix of tenure types to developments.

“We are seeing a good mix of social, affordable, private, and cost rental,” he notes.

“From a planning point of view, it is very important for developments to be tenure blind. You shouldn’t be able to distinguish one type from another. The architecture, materials and layout have to be similar throughout. And we are seeing significant effort going into mixing tenure types.”

And it’s not just a question of numbers.

“You don’t want to end up with one part of a development being exclusively social or private; you want to remove any stigma associated with any tenure type. That’s what we are seeing from a planning point of view now.”

There has also been a move to a healthy mix of housing typologies. Fergal Lalor says Sisk Living is seeing a good mix of threebed semis, duplexes, low-rise and mid-rise housing.

“In social housing, there is a very concerted effort towards own door access, where you have buildings two, three and four storeys high. Instead of a management company operating lifts and so on, the residents can look after those things themselves.”

The company currently has over 450 units under construction.

“We had a number of live projects prior to the latest shutdown, and we were pleased to see all of our sites open in April. We see industry challenges with both labour and material supply. However, none of these are particularly surprising, and we have been planning our way through dealing with them.”

MODERN METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION

Sisk Living is a strong advocate of modern methods of construction (MMC).

“MMC brings much greater speed and efficiency to home building,” says Lalor.

“Using offsite fabrication light-gauge steel

MAI N FE ATURE panels with our strategic partner Vision Built in Galway, we can develop a scheme in west Dublin while providing employment in Oranmore. It’s very good for balanced regional development.

“We use a variety of structural forms best suited to the typology of the site,” he continues. “For housing, we use light-gauge steel, insulated concrete formwork (ICF) and timber frame. For duplexes and lowrise apartments, we would predominantly use light gauge steel from Vision Built. The benefits of offsite fabrication are significant to the scale and delivery of the projects that we have and expect to tender for going forward.”

Though MMC comes with constraints.

“Currently, public and private sector schemes can have a myriad of housing typologies. They can have four variants of three-bed and five variants of four-bed houses. That lowers the efficiency of offsite construction, which is at its best when house types are limited. Offsite construction has to be accommodated at the planning stage.

There is no point in designing 15 types of homes and expecting MMC to deliver rapid build.”

Bonham Street, Dublin, development for Dublin City Council.

BIM BENEFITS

BIM Level 3 is also vital, as it offers the precision required by offsite fabrication.

But it requires a design freeze at a particular stage so that there are no further amendments.

“This allows for the offsite manufacturing to be done once the design reaches a certain point. If you go to a window or door manufacturer at the moment, they won’t make anything until they have measured on site. Traditional methods of construction have variations, but MMC precision is so high, you can place the order directly off the designs. The panacea is to do as much in the factory as possible. Ultimately, we will move to panels with the windows and doors already in them.”

DELIVERING SOCIAL HOUSING

There are other issues at play when it comes to the delivery of social and affordable housing, according to Fergal Lalor.

“One of the biggest challenges to the codevelopment of different tenure types is with how the land is brought to the market. We can see several different models in play at the moment.”

The first involves bringing local authority lands through a public procurement process, typically with the benefit of a masterplan and a tenure mix specification and seeking for the economic operator to develop a tenureblind mix.

“The challenge here is in bringing to market an affordable scheme that is typically 10% less than the market value,” he explains.

“The factors affecting this are the cost of the

land set by the local authority and the site services fund. In addition, the market awaits the delivery of shared equity schemes, and some cost rental are coming on line this year.”

Then there is the Land Development Agency (LDA).

“The LDA is typically developing state lands outside of local authority ownership, and these afford an even wider range of tenure mixes, which will attract combinations of approved housing bodies, individual owners and institutional investors.

Approved housing bodies, including those specialising in affordable housing, will remain the largest deliverer of schemes.”

planning, such that by the end of the local authority Part 8 process a preferred tenderer is selected.

“Along with the construction improvement, overlapping could bring the delivery period down to 22 months or a 35% improvement.”

And there are other benefits to be gained from early procurement.

“It would support the sustainability agenda by locking in more energy-efficient homes through planning for them at an early stage. It would provide mitigation to rising costs by involving the contract builder earlier to help come up with the most buildable and cost-effective solution, and it would offer an economic boost required for the industry and the overall economy post-Covid.”

PROCUREMENT CHALLENGE

ATTRACTING NEW TALENT

LAND DEVELOPMENT AGENCY

Procurement will remain the single biggest challenge, he believes.

“In full acceptance that the public bodies must remain compliant, there are a variety of ways in which the timelines can be improved. Current local-authority developed schemes can take up to 33 months to deliver.

This can be improved by 20% improvement to 27 months by running planning and procurement in parallel and improving construction delivery through maximising offsite fabrication and limiting the number of residential typologies on and one site.”

He argues that a more aggressive overlap can achieve further improvements with

Finally, Fergal Lalor points out that the industry will need to attract a lot of talent back along with new people if it is to deliver on the government’s housing targets.

“The industry built 20,000 houses last year, but the target is 35,000 a year. We need to attract people back to the industry and get new people to choose it for their careers. But the challenge is getting someone to enter into training or retraining for four or five years to work in an industry that experiences peaks and troughs. The government needs to stay the course in terms of putting capital investment into residential over the coming years,” he concludes.

irishconstructionnews 23 May 2021

MAI N FE ATURE St Mary’s Mansion’s, a €23m redevelopment by Clúid Housing in Dublin’s north east inner city.

K e e p in g it s o c ia l FIONA CORMICAN, New Business Director, Clúid Housing, speaks with Barry McCall about how the social housing delivery model has changed in recent years and calls for more joined-up thinking between stakeholders around building social housing.

D

espite the Covid lockdowns, Clúid Housing has continued to make a significant contribution to the government’s social housing target.

With a pipeline of 3,000 homes, Clúid Housing is one of Ireland’s largest approved housing bodies (AHBs). Founded in 1994, the organisation now has over 8,300 properties under management. Clúid focuses on delivering social housing solutions to those on local authority housing lists.

Fiona Cormican, New Business Director, Clúid Housing, says that the body is committed to providing quality housing and services that enable people to create homes and thriving communities. “There are 12 or 13 large AHBs in Ireland, and Clúid is one of the largest. We deliver a lot of new builds. In fact, 96% of our pipeline is new build, so we are increasing supply all of the time.”

CLÚID HOUSING MODEL

Clúid built 675 homes last year, despite Covid, and it has another 3,000 in the pipeline to be delivered in 2021 and 2022.

“We built 800 in 2019 and aim to build 1,000 this year, depending on lockdowns,” Cormican adds. “We have a robust pipeline for the next few years.”

24 irishconstructionnews May 2021

Clúid’s residents are people who were on housing lists.

“We work in partnership with local authorities to provide social housing for people on their housing lists.”

The rental model can vary according to the resident’s means and includes cost rental.

Allocation is decided by the local authority for social housing or the AHB involved for cost rental. In some cases where demand is high, a lottery can be run as long as all the people entered to qualify for the cost rental scheme.

The Clúid model is somewhat different to many of the other approved housing bodies (AHBs).

“We are focused on owning our properties,” Cormican explains. “There is an awful lot more involved in owning the homes than leasing them for a period of time. We are focused on quality. The lifetime cost and value of the homes and their carbon footprint are very important to us. We also have a big focus on creating sustainable communities where people can be proud to live.”

The long term view is critical in light of Clúid’s financial model.

MAI N FE ATURE FINANCING SOCIAL HOUSING

“In 2011, we saw a real change in how AHBs are financed,” she points out. “Capital grants from the state were phased out, and debt finance was phased in. We had a lot of learning to do in a short space of time, but the AHBs managed to do this very well.”

That new arrangement sees the government back Clúid and other AHBs with ‘soft’ 30-year loans to meet 30% of their capital expenditure needs. The AHBs raised the balance on the private credit markets.

The government support has the effect of de-risking the private debt finance and enables the organisations to negotiate more favourable terms.

That model brings certain pressures with it.

“When you are using debt finance, you don’t want voids. You want to build places where people want to live. Our focus is on neighbourhoods and communities, not just houses. Our residents’ voice is also very important to us. We listen to residents on what they want from their homes and communities, and we do our best to respond quickly.”

That requires a thoughtful approach.

“We try to make the best use of land. We put foundations in place that are built to last and mature. We try to future proof all of our developments and promote active and healthy lifestyles within them. Nearly zero-energy buildings (NZEB) has been our policy for the past four or five years. This is part of promoting better lives.”

Those policies bring a degree of personal satisfaction.

“These policies make Clúid Housing a great place to work. It’s also a fascinating place to work. We are constantly thinking about people, not profit. That doesn’t mean that we don’t focus on value for money.

It’s all about securing the best price and providing houses in the best locations possible. We are a non-profit organisation,

Fiona Cormican, New Business Director, Clúid Housing. but we operate in a commercially viable and sustainable way, which will allow us to continue providing good quality housing and services for generations to come.”

WORKING WITH DEVELOPERS AND BUILDERS

In so far as is possible, Clúid develops its own schemes. However, there are occasions when the organisation will purchase from developers.

“We try to achieve a balance between the two. We develop a lot of houses, and we are

a big player in the market,” says Cormican.

“What we do has a huge impact.”

Clúid introduced an attractive proposition for small to mid-sized developers in 2017. It sees Clúid purchase a development and pay staged payments during construction.

“We will do this if we like what they are building,” she says. “It gives us control of quality on site, and it’s great for the developers as they don’t have to finance the development while it’s on site.”

Clúid will typically work with smaller organisations that are building 20 to 40 houses at a time, but it also works with larger developers on large mixed-tenure schemes.

Fiona Cormican explains: “Working with smaller organisations helps create local employment, as those builders are buying from local suppliers. Building for us allows them to free up resources to build new houses for the private market. So, we are not only delivering social housing but helping the private market as well.”

A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH

Clúid’s Dún Sí, Fingal development was delivered as a Part V scheme in partnership with Quintain.

Looking to the future, Fiona Cormican believes there several measures that could smooth the delivery of social and affordable housing.

“More collaboration is always the way forward,” she says. “A lot of stakeholders are involved in the social housing process, and a more structured framework for collaboration would be very helpful,” she concludes.

irishconstructionnews 25 May 2021

CASE STUDY

O ff -s i t e s o l u t i o n s facilitate time ly com ple tion of luxury residential scheme The construction programme for Turkington Rock’s The Paddock in South Dublin, built over the past year by Vision Contracting, benefitted greatly from an early decision to use precast concrete elements for the build.

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escribed as Ireland’s first interior design-led luxury residential property developer, Turkington Rock is a collaboration between interior designer Helen Turkington and developer Keith Craddock (Red Rock Developments).

Helen Turkington has worked on some of the most exclusive homes in Ireland and across Europe, while Keith Craddock’s Red Rock Developments has built a reputation for creating exquisite family homes.

Turkington Rock has assembled a unique collection of development sites in south Dublin to create newly-built family homes to the highest specification.

THE PADDOCK

The Paddock on Bushy Park Road, Terenure, Dublin, is the latest residential development for the innovative partnership. Built over the past year by main contractor Vision Contracting, the high specification residential scheme of eight contemporary houses is finished to Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) standard, with precast concrete panels and floors by O’Reilly Concrete. The decision to go with off-site construction for the structure of the houses was influenced by the fact that the development was on a tight site in a busy residential community. But this decision took on even greater significance when the Covid-19 pandemic struck, as it meant that movements to and from site and numbers working on site could be

26 irishconstructionnews May 2021

kept to a minimum without impeding project progress to any great degree.

LUXURY HOMES

The Paddock is a mix of four- and five-bedroom houses, some over a single-storey basement, with south facing rear gardens. Landscaped private courtyards and balconies also form part of the bespoke design.

Each house is finished with an external brick façade. All are fitted with underfloor heating driven by air to water heat pumps and have HRV ventilation, along with triple-glazed windows and doors. The A-BER rated houses have airtightness levels of between 2 and 3 m3/ hr/m2.

OFF-SITE SOLUTION

According to Paul Daly, Site Manager, Vision Contracting, achieving the airtightness performance criteria was helped by the fact that precast concrete panels and floors were precision-fabricated off site.

“The brief to Vision Contracting at the outset of this project was to deliver an exceptionally high-quality finish together with the highest standard of energy efficiency,” Paul Daly explains. “The client supplied a design, which we analysed. We then presented them with solutions that would meet their energy performance requirements and facilitate the smooth construction of the scheme.”

CASE STUDY

deliver the quality homes that we require for our purchasers.”

ADDRESSING COVID-19 CHALLENGES

The building programme was planned to last 12 months. Paul Daly says that the project had made great progress when the first lockdown hit in March.

“We then worked closely with the client and our teams to get the site ready to reopen in May after the first lockdown,” he explains.

“When we were shut down in January of this year, the programme only had about four weeks to run. This achievement was made possible by the client making decisions quickly, and us having an experienced project team and supply chain that adapted quickly to the new working procedures. They all put in outstanding performances on the job.”

The site was tight and located in a busy residential area with a school nearby.

“By using precast concrete frames for all the houses, we were able to substantially reduce traffic on site as well as speed up work on site,” Daly continues. “This also helped when we introduced new Covid-19 procedures on site. The delivery of the panels was timed not to interfere with commuter movement in the area. Also, as the precast frames were precision made, the required level of airtightness was more easily achieved than would have been the case with more traditional building methods.”

TURKINGTON ROCK

The client, Keith Craddock, Turkington Rock and Red Rock Developments, says that The Paddock is a unique high-end residential development and the site logistics demanded an innovative construction approach to meet the scheme’s quality and programme requirements.

“I have worked with Vision Contracting on a number of residential projects over the past four years and I knew from the outset that they would deliver for Turkington Rock on all aspects,” he comments.

“The precast basement and off-site manufactured structure solution were a key part of the overall project’s success. This would not have been possible without Vision Contracting’s involvement. Their unrelenting attention to detail and focus on workmanship has helped

VISION CONTRACTING

Colm Fehily, Director, Vision Contracting, says that The Paddock is a great project for Vision Contracting to have in its portfolio as demand for high-specification luxury homes grows “This was a great showcase project for us,” Colm Fehily explains.

PROJECT TEAM Client: Red Rock Developments Main Contractor : Vision Contracting Structural Engineer : Garland Consultancy Cost & Quantity Consultant: Duke McCaff rey Consulting

SPECIFICATIONS Fully concrete built from precast wall and floor panels manufactured off site NZEB standard of construction Underground basements with secant piling embankment retention system with full Bentonite – Geotextile waterproofing system provided by Cetco Ireland.

irishconstructionnews 27 May 2021

CASE STUDY

“Following the last housing crash, the market for this type of house was slow to recover. But it has now started to open up. The Paddock is a prime example of a new form of modern low-energy luxury homes. We are delighted with the finished scheme and how everyone pulled together to deliver it so successfully.”

Fehily says that the mix of its work has to some degree, protected it from too much exposure in the past year.

“While we have several developments in various sectors in Dublin and on the east coast, we also have a good mix of work across other regions, with a spread in pharma, residential, retail, educational,

28 irishconstructionnews May 2021

industrial and commercial areas. We are looking forward to bringing the projects we couldn’t work on back on site in the coming weeks. We also have a lot of new work on our order books for the coming year.

Vision Contracting has completely changed how it operates its sites and projects as a result of Covid-19, with many of the new procedures and practices here to stay.

“Sites will have less traffic and people on them,” adds Fehily.

“Project and personnel management have become much more efficient, and monitoring and reviewing work has also greatly improved. One benefit to come as a result of the Covid pandemic is the introduction of remote meetings. We no longer have groups of people travelling from all over the country to attend a meeting. We are now achieving efficiencies across the board that we could not have possibly imagined 18 months ago. The Irish construction sector as a whole has achieved so much in the past year, and we in Vision Contracting are delighted to have been able to play our part in that,” Colm Fehily concludes.

Scan the QR code to view a video of the development

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irishconstructionnews 29 May 2021

CASE STUDY

Poplar Row residential scheme comprising 29 apartments.

One of the first projects on which new Covid-19 operating procedures were introduced, as it was approved by Dublin City Council to reopen early after the first lockdown, Monami Construction’s Poplar Row, Dublin, residential scheme presented significant logistics challenges. But the contractor delivered with minimal delay.

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hile the overall construction sector reopened in May 2020 after the first Covid-19 shutdown, Monami Construction’s Poplar Row, Dublin, residential project for approved housing body Oaklee Housing received a dispensation to reopen in April. It was one of three projects to receive this designation through Dublin City Council.

As it was one of the first sites to reopen, it was closely monitored at the time to see if it could operate successfully, strictly adhering to HSE and government Covid-19 public health guidelines and the Return To Work Safely Protocol.

THE BRIEF

Before all of this happened, Monami Construction had been making steady progress on the project located close to Croke Park between Ballybough Road and Annesley Bridge Road.

The brief from Oaklee Housing was for the partial demolition of original four-storey buildings on the site and construction of a new five-storey block to provide housing for older people in the community. The project comprises 29 apartments with balconies.

The apartment block includes 25 one-bed apartments, four two-bed apartments, and a maintenance unit with associated storage.

CHALLENGES

As well as being on a busy road, the construction site was tight and presented several logistics challenges.

30 irishconstructionnews May 2021

Darran Hennessy, Contracts Director, Monami Construction, explains some of the challenges faced: “As the development occupied the entire footprint of the site, justin-time deliveries were essential due to the minimal storage space available.

“A section of public roadway was procured from Dublin City Council to allow a delivery drop-off and set-down area. We temporarily re-aligned the traffic lanes to ensure the safe movement of pedestrians and vehicles.

“We had a prolonged period of inclement weather when high winds impacted the superstructure works,” he continues. “However, to ensure progress was maintained, the steel-frame element proceeded, and the concrete frame element followed when weather conditions allowed us to do so.”

He adds that local groups were given regular briefings on the project’s status due to its location in a residential community.

“Look-ahead programmes were posted on the site hoardings regularly, plus site management attended community meetings to liaise directly with any parties that expressed concern. Once Covid-19 restrictions were introduced, these meetings were moved to the virtual space.”

Construction on the east and west boundaries of the building presented challenges.

“Some of the work was carried out above occupied residences,” Hennessy explains.

“A cantilevered scaffolding design was successfully implemented on site, which

CASE STUDY

Monami scheme was one o f th e f ir s t to b e c o m p le te d under C ovid-19 Re turn to Work Safe ly Protocol helped overcome this issue.”

MEETING THE SCHEDULE

The initial programme schedule was for a 15-month build. This was impacted by the first Covid-19 lockdown and then by some additional client-requested internal alterations. However, the overall project was completed in 20 months.

Hennessy says that the team was delighted when the site reopened after the first lockdown and that all people on site bought into CIF Covid-19 Pandemic Standard Operating Procedure from day one.

“The new operating procedure impacted all aspects of the project,” he says. “As we were one of the first sites to reopen, we had very little in terms of precedence to work with, but we knew we had to get everything right from the start as there were increased inspections and attention on construction sites. How we carried out site inductions, task durations, morning and lunch breaks, to name a few, all had to be adapted to suit the new procedures, and these changes were monitored closely. On reopening, the project was at the stage where the building was weathertight, so completing internal finishes posed the challenge of maintaining social distancing. But the on-site teams followed the new procedures set down for us to operate the site successfully.”

SERVICES PROVISION

Monami Construction’s M&E services coordinator Paddy Roche worked closely with the design team and specialist subcontractors to manage all the services.

Roche explains: “Monami prepared a sample apartment that showed all first fix pipe runs, cable runs and ductwork. This set a benchmark for quality at an early stage and enabled management to supervise works without any programme implications.”

Monami Construction also implemented a ‘Utility Connection Tracker’ that guided the design team and the client on a stepby-step basis to ensure utility connections were made in a timely manner, thus avoiding

unnecessary delays to the project.

The completed project is a hi-spec lowenergy development. Each apartment has gas-fired condensing boilers. The electricity supply is supplemented by PV panels installed on the roof.

UNIQUE DESIGN

The key feature of this development is its design, a combination of three featurebrick entrance staircases and a four-story façade that cantilevers dramatically at one end, which creates unique front and side elevations.

Despite the hurdles encountered during its construction, this building was a huge success. Its unique design, combined with a successful build, have created a building with which all parties, including the local community, are very pleased.

Darran Hennessy says that the Poplar Row apartment development is just one of several recently completed residential developments

by Monami Construction, but it is an exemplary project completed in unique circumstances.

“Oaklee Housing’s Poplar Row development will act as a flagship for Monami Construction for future similar developments well into the future.”

MONAMI CONSTRUCTION

Despite the challenges that have hit everyone in the sector in the past year, Monami Construction has maintained a steady output of residential work.

It recently completed St Pancras apartment and housing development in Harold’s Cross, Dublin. In Galway, it is due to complete Moycullen housing development in the coming weeks. Also on site at the moment is Bartra Capital’s Poplar Row apartment development in Dublin 3. This is due for completion in early 2022. Gaelcarrig housing development in Galway city is ongoing and scheduled for completion in early 2022. The contractor is also about to start work on the Cherrywood T2 housing development for Quintain Ireland, which comprises 136 units in a 14-month programme.

PROJECT TEAM Client: Oaklee Housing Main Contractor : Monami Construction Architect: Cooney Architects M&E Consultant: IN2 Engineering Design Partnership Quantity Surveyor : MacMinn O Reilly Mahon Structural/Civil Engineer : Punch Consulting Assigned Certifier : Punch Consulting

irishconstructionnews 31 May 2021

CASE STUDY

Radharc An tSaile, Kinsale, County Cork .

M M D C o ns tr u c tio n d e liv e r s 4 0 NZ E B h o m e s in Kinsale for C lúid Housing Despite Covid-19 lockdowns, MMD Construction delivered the Radharc An tSaile housing scheme in Kinsale for Clúid Housing just one week behind schedule.

M

MD Construction was the main contractor and Project Supervisor Construction Stage for Radharc An tSaile, a 40 unit Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB) standard social housing scheme in Kinsale, County Cork, for approved housing body Clúid Housing.

The project was a collaboration between Clúid, Cork County Council, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the Housing Finance Agency (HFA) and MMD Construction. It had been 10 years in the pipeline and was eventually completed in 2020.

Radharc An tSaile comprises 18 twostorey, two-bed houses; 20 two-storey, threebed houses; and two single-storey two-bed accessible dwellings. The ultra-efficient A-rated dwellings incorporate the latest mechanical and electrical services.

The houses were built to an A2 BER rating and achieved an airtightness of under 3 m3/hr/m2. Adding an air-to-water heating system brought them to NZEB standard.

CHALLENGES

Kevin O’Leary, Director, MMD Construction, says several substantial challenges were faced on the build, including the Covid-19 shutdown. But the contractor still managed to achieve substantial

32 irishconstructionnews May 2021

completion only one week behind programme.

The first challenge the MMD Construction team faced was in relation to the excavation works.

“The scheme is constructed into the side of a hill,” explains Kevin O’Leary. “There was a lot of rock to be cleared, which proved challenging and more time consuming than expected due to its density, particularly when it came to foundations and services. But we were able to bring in the large enough machinery from our plant stock to be able to get on with the job.”

ADDRESSING COVID-19

Cormac Smith, Director, MMD Construction, outlines how Covid-19 impacted the project, “The Covid-19 shutdown and introduction of new Covid-19 operating procedures required major changes for those working on the site and the whole MMD Construction organisation,” Cormac Smith explains. “The first shutdown hampered us, and when we reopened, it took a couple of weeks to get the site moving smoothly. During the first shutdown, we put a lot of work into preparing new procedures for how the overall company would operate, including enabling those who could work remotely to do so, and setting up our IT

CASE STUDY infrastructure to facilitate this.”

IRISH WATER

As this was the first housing scheme that MMD constructed that required implementation of the new Irish Water sign-off procedure, the MMD Construction project team found the level of coordination and sequencing of works to be very timeconsuming.

O’Leary explains: “While there are some elements in Irish Water’s code of practice that are impractical and at times almost unworkable, we found its field team to be extremely helpful. They discussed and advised on details and requirements for our site, and they forewarned us about issues that they had seen arise on other sites. It all worked out well in the end, and connections went according to plan. I would advise any contractor planning a housing scheme not to underestimate the time and resources required to comply with these requirements.”

C&D WASTE MANAGEMENT

Returning to the excavated rock, MMD Construction wanted to minimise waste from the site in line with the intended goal of Article 27 of the European Communities (Waste Directive) Regulations 2011 “to reduce, reuse, recycle construction waste” where possible. MMD Construction wanted to transfer the extracted rock and shale from the Radharc An tSaile for reuse on another project in the local area.

“We wanted to minimise waste from the site by following the guidance to reduce, reuse or recycle,” explains Smith. “The rock and shale drawn from the site were perfectly good for reuse under Article 27 of the EC Waste Directive. We had a local site lined up to take the stone. But at the time, it was difficult to get Article 27 approval. It ultimately proved impossible to get sign off on reusing the rock for the other project.

This meant, disappointingly, we had to dispose of the rock in landfill, with the knock-on environmental impact that the contractor on the other project had to quarry new stone for their project.”

SUBSTANTIAL COMPLETION

Despite these challenges, the substantial completion of the project was only one week behind schedule, an achievement of which Kevin O’Leary is very proud.

“We worked long hours and some weekends to pick up the time lost to the Covid-19 shutdown. The team worked very hard to meet deadlines following the new operating procedure. So, I am delighted with how it all worked out in the end.”

CLÚID HOUSING

The newly constructed scheme is already housing over 100 people. Clúid financed the construction of these new homes to the

Aerial view of Radharc An tSaile, Kinsale, County Cork .

value of €9.7m, through a loan facility from the Housing Finance Agency (HFA) and a Capital Advance and Availability Payment from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

Discussing the new scheme, James O’Halloran, New Business and Development Manager, Clúid, said: “Clúid Housing is delighted to deliver these new homes in partnership with Cork County Council, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the Housing Finance Agency and MMD Construction. These 40 new A-rated homes not only address the need for new social housing in the area, they provide greener homes with lower fuel bills for our residents.”

Clúid manages over 8,000 affordable, high-quality homes and provides housing management services to over 20,000 residents across Ireland. The organisation is committed to delivering 3,000 new homes across Ireland before the end of 2022.

Clúid has a strong profile in Cork, with over 1,200 homes across the city and county.

Throughout 2021, it will deliver a further 16 new homes in Skibbereen and commence work on 15 new homes in Bantry.

MMD CONSTRUCTION

Cormac Smith says that Radharc An tSaile was a very successful project for MMD Construction, which was made possible as a result of the proactiveness and cooperation of the entire design team and client representatives.

“We have several social housing projects under our belt over the past few years.

Radharc An tSaile is a great one to add to that portfolio, as it is an NZEB development, and despite the challenges faced, we still kept very close to schedule. Building houses to NZEB standard is not a major challenge.

You focus on getting the airtightness and insulation right, then include the requisite renewables in the scheme. But for residents of these houses, it makes a big difference in terms of their comfort. It also plays into the bigger goal of reducing carbon emissions.”

PROJECTS ON SITE

Other works recently completed by MMD Construction include a 4,000 sq metre primary health care unit with a public library; and Colaiste Chairain, a 10,000 sq metre state-of-the-art school in Croom.

The contractor is currently on site with a number of social housing schemes, including Beechgrove, a 51-house scheme in Clonakilty for Cork County Council; and it is handling the social housing element – comprising 29 houses – of a Cork city scheme for a private developer.

On site in other sectors, MMD Construction has the design and rapidbuild of a 60-bed nursing home in St Mary’s Health Campus, Cork City; a new filling line facility in Carrigtwohill for GE Healthcare; an Aldi retail unit in Douglas, Cork; a new anodising plant in Little Island Cork for Architectural Metal Systems; and three schools on the Carrigaline Education Campus in Carrigaline.

Upcoming projects include constructing a new extension at St Joseph’s Community Hospital, Millstreet; and a new three-storey school in Blarney for Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál. When completed, this will be the largest school in the country.

PROJECT TEAM Client: Clúid Housing Main Contractor : MMD Construction Ltd Project Managers: KSN Project Management Ltd. Architect: VHA Architects Civil/Structural Engineering: DJF Engineering Services Ltd, Services engineering: Delap & Waller Ltd. Quantity Surveying: MAC Construction Consultants Ltd

irishconstructionnews 33 May 2021

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Laois Hire provides generators ranging from 20kVa to 500kVa, with Bruno being their main choice of supplier. They also supply a full range of accessories, including transformers, cables, fuel and fully bunded fuel tanks. Dan Nolan, Site foreman for Priority Construction, has high praise for the division. “The generators we hire from Laois Hire are very low maintenance on our part. If we need one in a hurry, they could arrive within a few hours and the generators are maintained by their own team of fitters.

There is never any problem getting through to place an order and the equipment is reliable with prompt delivery.”

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High profile customers include Enercon’s Michael O’Brien, Grid Operations Coordinator. “We have been dealing with Keith and his team for a number of years now and have always found their service to be of a very high standard. I have often contacted Keith at short notice and he has never let me down. The back-up service is excellent and they are always available to take a call.”

Laois Hire work with some of the largest scale developments in the country, providing up to 100 generators on one major site in the Dublin region at any one time. You can find more information on the Power Generation division on their new website, laoishire.com, or call 1800 20 40 40.

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CASE STUDY

CGI render of Abbey Farm Demesne scheme.

Building along the c o m m u te r b e lt Weslin Construction’s Abbey Farm Demesne is designed to be the ideal in luxury country living on the edge of the commuter belt with easy links into the capital.

W

hile demand for housing along the capital’s commuter belt remains unabated, it goes without saying that purchasers looking for homes in Open-plan kitchen and dining area.

36 irishconstructionnews May 2021

the counties around Dublin are looking to get maximum value for their money.

Abbey Farm Demesne on the mature Abbey Farm Estate in Celbridge, Co Kildare, is an A2-BER rated six-house development, which was built in 2018 by the developer arm of general contractor and civil engineer Weslin Construction.

The developer’s goal with the scheme’s design was to maximise living and recreation space and blend the development well with the adjoining parklands and open space.

The infill scheme comprises two detachedand four semi-detached three-storey houses.

The six 152 sq metre-homes were designed

by CDP Architecture to a high level of specification, with great attention given to the interior design and layout.

Each house is heated by an air-to-water heat pump system, which feeds underfloor heating on the ground floor and radiators on the upper floors, with mechanical ventilation throughout.

CASE STUDY The facade of each timber frame house is finished in a combination of render and pale yellow brick, with sandstone to the surrounds and sills.

Internally, each house has an expansive open-plan kitchen and dining space on the ground floor, with a separate living room, utility and toilet. A closed string staircase leads to the first and second floors, where there are five bedrooms – two of which are en-suite.

Aidan Boyle, Managing Director, Weslin Construction, says early decisions made in planning the scheme helped when they got on site.

“It was an exciting project in that we were inserting high-spec homes into an existing development and mature woodland. We were also looking to achieve an A2-BER rating. The use of timber frame meant that we could achieve high levels of insulation and an airtightness level that helped us accomplish the A2 BER rating. The decision to go with timber frame also resulted in fewer people being required onsite, making the build safer and more efficient.”

One of the two detached three-storey houses at Abbey Farm Demesne.

WESLIN CONSTRUCTION

Founded in 2000, Weslin Construction is a building and civil engineering contractor with a portfolio of work in areas that include the education, residential, civil engineering, commercial, financial and industrial sectors.

“We recognised a number of years back the need for general contractors to engage in housing projects for both private- and public-sector clients,” Boyle explains. “When we started in residential construction, we brought with us vast experience in the commercial sectors in new build, fit-out, civil engineering and conservation. We also brought the experience of working with building control management systems and were able to apply this knowledge and experience in our approach to housing projects. We intend to complete many more housing projects, both as contractors for our clients and as developers.”

He adds that over the past decade, Weslin Construction’s move to providing a crosssector construction service to clients was carefully planned.

“Our belief has always been to deliver a high-quality service where we build on time and as cost-effectively as possible. This desire for quality has seen us employ a dedicated programme of re-investment in our people, systems and processes, ensuring clients receive the most on-time and cost-effective solutions. It also meant that we were able to move between project types with great ease.”

Weslin was recently re-certified in ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015 and awarded the ISO 45001:2018 certificate for the internationally recognised standards in Quality, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety Management.

Living room adjacent to open-plan kitchen and dining area.

Aidan Boyle says that his team’s experience ideally places the company to take on any building challenge.

“Our unique attribute is our experience. It is our most valuable asset. We have worked on diverse projects, from minor works to major works. Many of our projects run concurrently, and we place the right teams with the right experience on the right jobs.”

Weslin Construction’s client base includes Dublin City Council, Department of Education, Maxol Ireland, Office of Public Works, Health Service Executive, Dublin Bus, Bank of Ireland, Dublin Port, Department of Marine, TU Dublin Grangegorman, Irish Rail, Euro Car Parts Ireland and Henkel Ireland.

For more details on Weslin Construction, visit www.weslin.ie

PROJECT TEAM Main Contractor : Weslin Construction Limited Architect and Interior Designer : CDP Architecture Structural Engineer : Lohan & Donnelly Consulting Engineers M&E Consultant: RM Breen Associates

irishconstructionnews 37 May 2021

CASE STUDY Bridgefield and Pappan Grove development, Santry, Dublin.

Ga s Ne t w o r k s Ir e la n d a n d C o s g r a v e G r o u p partner to reduce em issions on Dublin scheme Gas Networks Ireland worked with developer Cosgrave Group to deliver a gas-fuelled sustainable solution on its Bridgefield and Pappan Grove development in Dublin.

L

eading developers continue to use natural gas to deliver secure, affordable and sustainable homes that meet Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB) standard. This was the finding of a Gas Networks Ireland case study.

Gas Networks Ireland is working to facilitate the development of innovative technologies to address Ireland’s carbon challenge.”

COSGRAVE GROUP

BRIDGEFIELD AND PAPPAN GROVE

Cosgrave Group’s award-winning Bridgefield and Pappan Grove development in Santry, Dublin, is a 250-unit apartment scheme spread over three six-storey and one five-storey buildings. It is heated by a combination of central gas boilers, gasfuelled combined heat and power (CHP) units and commercial electric heat pumps.

A2 BER RATING

The mix of technologies delivers an A2 BER rating and lower energy costs for residents.

Smart technology allows residents to monitor their heating and hot water from their phone. Hot water is available 24 hours a day and can be remotely controlled, allowing people to heat their apartment before they arrive home.

Crucially, there is no water tank or gas boiler in each apartment, meaning more space for storage or living.

Lar Burke, Residential Connections Manager, Gas Networks Ireland, says that central plant in apartment block developments, including other elements, comply with Part L 2019 of the building regulations, and renewable gas and the introduction of hydrogen into the gas

38 irishconstructionnews May 2021

Lar Burke, Residential Connections Manager, Gas Networks Ireland. network will continue to decarbonise already A2 BER-rated homes.

“With the dramatic increase in the development of apartments as part of Ireland’s housing stock and the need to build more sustainably, Gas Networks Ireland is focused on providing solutions for homebuilders.

“Homeowners want sustainable solutions.

But they want solutions that are familiar and affordable. This award-winning Bridgefield and Pappan Grove development shows the role that natural gas is playing in modern homes.

LONG TERM SOLUTIONS

“Longer term, we will see a role for renewable gasses such as biomethane and hydrogen to decarbonise heating in Ireland.

The Cosgrave Group operates a ‘Five Pillars of Excellence’ standard across its developments.

The Cosgrave Five Pillars of Excellence are: 1. Quality in design, specification and construction Cosgrave’s design and build programme is punctuated by a series of quality checks created to ensure every home meets specific standards.

2. Sustainability in energy-efficient living Cosgrave was an early adaptor of the sustainability agenda.

3. Low maintenance with reliable, long term solutions Maintenance is a central consideration in the design and specification criteria of every new Cosgrave home.

4. User-focused designed homes Cosgrave places the user at the centre of every design decision.

5. Community benefit A primary Cosgrave goal is to deliver an environment where dwellings, landscape and surroundings provide the maximum benefit for residents. The team identifies and pursues opportunities to create: safe play areas, landscape features, parklands, walkways, sports areas, jogging paths, transport links, access to leisure amenities and the inclusion of various bespoke feature areas.

OVER 140 YEARS OF BRICK MAKING

In the early 1820s Sir Richard Griffith, mining engineer to the Royal Dublin Society, conducted a private mineral survey of the Kingscourt region and found the presence of brick clay and gypsum.

The Drumgill plant was established c.1877 (Irish Builder) and the quality and texture of the bricks and terracotta were widely acclaimed and rapidly won favour in the Dublin and local markets.

Today, 140 years later, Kingscourt Brick Ltd continue to uphold a cherished and time-honoured heritage while adding their own distinctive blend of quality and sustainable production, to meet the exacting demands of the market place.

S U S TA I N A B L E • R E S I L I A N T • LO N G E V I T Y

Kingscourt Brick Ltd, Drumgill, Kingscourt, Co. Cavan Tel: 042 966 7317 | www.kingscourtbrick.com

irishconstructionnews 39 May 2021

CASE STUDY

LOVE C ANNOT LIVE WHERE THER E IS NO TR US S JOHN LAWRENCE, Design Manager, Actavo Hire & Sales Solutions, writes about how Actavo achieved the right solution in the right place at ESB’s Project Fitzwilliam.

T

he redevelopment of ESB’s Fitzwilliam Street site in Dublin 2 commenced in June 2017. This involved the demolition of existing buildings, the refurbishment of a number of protected Georgian structures, and the construction of a new seven-storey office block designed by internationally acclaimed Grafton Architects and O’Mahony Pike Architects.

The new seven-storey office block comprises large areas of reinforced concrete walls, columns and slabs, most of which would be considered standard construction, albeit some interesting walkway “bridges” with integrated structural handrails, large underhanging precast soffit panels, several double and triple-height decks and some very large precast façade panels. The most significant falsework challenge, however, was the Vierendeel trusses, one of which was suspended 17 metres above the basement slab. The structural arrangement for the falsework required 17m-high “towers” over a plan area of approximately 250 sq metres to support 1-sq-metre deep beams (on three floors), three floor-slabs of concrete, and all the rising elements over the three floors due to the unconventional structural arrangement. The entire weight carried by these falsework towers came to an astonishing 1070 tons, equivalent to about 148 elephants, 24 humpback whales, or three Boeing 747 jets.

STANDARD METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION

In standard reinforced concrete multi-storey building construction (particularly flat soffit slabs), horizontal falsework systems and methods of (typical) floor by floor construction are all relatively similar.

The majority of systems readily available fall into three categories; a) Loose decking (with either timber or aluminium prefabricated beams) supported on individual props, b) Proprietary panel systems fitting together in specified “grids”, or

40 irishconstructionnews May 2021

c) Fabricated “table-form”, comprising a large preassembled formwork and falsework unit forming a complete section of suspended floor slab.

Although varying slab thickness, concrete strengths, and reinforcement percentages can affect the falsework and back-propping designs, the design principles are generally straight forward.

Alternative structural arrangements or non-standard methods of construction add additional complexities in falsework design and in method and timing of striking. These alternative methods require careful coordination between the Temporary Works Designer (TWD), the Permanent Works Designer (PWD) and the construction teams to agree on a construction sequence that; a) Achieves the integrity of the permanent structural design, b) Remains within the safe working capacity of the formwork and falsework materials (at all stages of construction), and c) Achieves practical pouring and striking times in line with the programme, and d), Provides a buildable solution for the contractor.

VIERENDEEL TRUSS

CASE STUDY A Vierendeel truss is a “rigid truss” structure where the structural members form rectangular openings. Standard trusses comprise members that are assumed to have pinned joints, with the implication that no moments exist at the jointed ends. However, a Vierendeel truss comprises fixed joints capable of transferring and resisting bending moments. The use of this structural element offers several advantages in a building’s structure: • A large amount of the exterior envelope remains unobstructed and can be used for large windows and door openings and • A Vierendeel truss formed over several floors does not appear as such and will appear as slender individual slabs.

Utilising structural upstands/down-stands and columns over several internal and external courtyards, the engineering and architectural teams introduced several Vierendeel truss elements into the permanent works design of ESB’s Project Fitzwilliam.

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

When using proprietary formwork/falsework systems to construct a standard RC concrete slab, the grid spacing required for these systems is generally dependent only on the slab thickness, prop height and prop type. In addition, in standard concrete construction, once an individual concrete slab has reached sufficient strength to be self-supporting, the falsework can be struck, ie, the load is released, allowing the slab to take its self-weight. In multi-storey construction, back-propping is used to reduce the effect of the point loads (when pouring the next floor above) on the newly poured slabs by distributing some of the wet-concrete load to the (older) slabs below. The back-propping usually is required as a sequence of point loads from falsework (during construction) acting on a newly formed slab is generally more onerous than the “in service” UDL loading.

The critical difference in designing formwork and falsework for a Vierendeel truss element is that the structural element is not fully formed until both the horizontal chords (in this case, the concrete beams, slabs, upstands and down-stands) and the vertical chords (columns) are all completed and have achieved a minimum concrete strength as specified by the PWD. This difference results in the necessity for the falsework initially used to support the lower slab to fully remain in place until the rising elements and subsequent slabs have also been formed. Hence, this falsework must either be designed to take the cumulative construction loads until the Vierendeel truss is fully completed or must be strengthened at each stage of construction to take account of the additional wet-concrete loads for each subsequent pour.

The other consideration in the construction of a Vierendeel truss is the sequence of “striking”. Striking (as with standard construction) must be carried out from top-down to avoid “shock-loading” the

lower slab. However, critically for the permanent design, when each slab is struck, the individual slabs must have sufficient strength to take their self-weight as the truss is not fully complete until the lower slab (tension chord) is fully struck. This adds further complexity into the falsework design as each stage of striking must also be carefully considered, and the falsework for each level must also be designed/ assessed for each stage as the cumulative loads from above during these stages is then concentrated through the rising elements and not distributed through all the temporary props (when the falsework for the slabs above is entirely in place).

COURT YARD 2 DESIGN

The largest Vierendeel truss structure over “Courtyard 2” comprised three floor-slabs. Hence the lowest slab formwork and falsework needed to be designed for wet concrete loads of all three floors, including all the rising elements which encompassed the entire truss structural arrangement. The subsequent slab design needed to be designed for two floors and the associated rising elements.

In addition to this complexity, the underside of the lower-most slab started at the third floor of the main structure, which was more than 17 metres above the basement floor. Each slab also included several stiffened beams on each floor, which supported a clear span of over 16 metres and were subsequently 1 metre deep. In addition to the complexity of the falsework design, the issue of assembling and dismantling these towers also required meticulous planning and several meetings with the main contractor (PJ Hegarty & Sons U.C.) the concrete subcontractor (Admore Structures Ltd) and the PWD (O’Connor Sutton Cronin) was vital at the early stages of the design.

The design principle incorporated a series of individual tower assemblies, which could be fabricated off-site and craned into place before being tied together in-situ to form a fully braced falsework structure.

Each tower assembly was analysed at each stage of construction (and striking) to ensure individual prop loads did not exceed their safe working capacity. This resulted in towers being further clustered together along the perimeter to allow for the final striking phase, at which time the entire two floors above were supported by the rising elements all positioned along the same perimeter.

The off-site fabrication sped up the erection time, reduced the space needed on the site and minimised working at height. On completion of striking the falsework, the arrangement of towers allowed the individual assemblies to be separated by removing specific bracing components. The individual assemblies were then wheeled sideways from underneath the completed truss and lowered slowly sideways with a crane where they could be safely disassembled at ground level.

The falsework design was entirely carried out by Actavo’s dedicated design team and independently checked by CADD Creations.

irishconstructionnews 41 May 2021

OPI NION

John FFF Brien, Principal, John FFF O’Brien Ltd, Dispute Resolution & Legal Support Consultants.

‘The time is now for our nation’s Public Works C ontrac ts to evolve’ JOHN FFF O’BRIEN writes that resolving a disputed public works final account with the assistance of a neutral third party is as much a part of the construction process as the physical setting out of the works, but this should not be the case.

W

e have an overwhelming obligation and responsibility to the generations to come not only as a nation but as an EU member state to address the reasons for the uncertainty in our public works contracts. This is particularly urgent if Ireland is to build and maintain its infrastructure into the future.

THE PERFECT STORM

The 08 June 2010 was the date that the 2010 Arbitration Act became law in this country.

This occurrence was the last in a series of three unfortunate events that adversely affected the construction industry, which gave rise to what I respectfully refer to as the “perfect storm”. The two other events were the introduction of the new form of public works contract (PWC) in 2007 and the 2008 global financial crisis. The perfect storm created by those events has continued to blow fiercely for more than a decade.

THE INTRODUCTION OF THE PWC

Before identifying how we solve the problem, we need to understand it, and for that, we have to consider its origins.

In 2007, the first versions of the PWC were introduced to replace the government department and local authorities (GDLA) “blue” and “yellow” forms of contract (for

42 irishconstructionnews May 2021

use on employer-designed building works) and the IEI (now Engineers Ireland) form of contract (for use on employer-designed civil engineering works). These new contract forms were developed as a reaction to a “politician’s brief ” and were purported to achieve out-turn cost certainty, as a disgruntled electorate were seemingly fed up with cost overruns on government contracts.

However, what many politicians didn’t understand (and indeed many mainstream journalists too) is that construction contracts are all about risk allocation and that to achieve commercial value for taxpayers’ money, the risk ought to remain with the party who is best placed to manage it, and, critically, when you mismanage this allocation, it can get quite complicated and expensive.

In theory, the objective of the new PWCs was to procure tenders from contractors that would become pure “fixed-price lump-sum” contracts, thereby giving cost certainty.

There would be no more undefined or provisional works in these new contracts, nor would there be any contingency slush funds – contractors would simply be paid one agreed price for one defined package of work. Of course, it was expected that the lump sums tendered under the new regime would be slightly higher than those

that would have been tendered under the previous government contract forms, but now, in theory, there would be no chance of any ‘runaway’ costs over that tendered lump sum.

Consultant design engineers and architects did not escape the new regime either, as their brief was to comprehensively define and design the works as required by the employer’s brief so that there would be little or no extras whatsoever. This is not an easy task to achieve, and perhaps that is why every international standard construction form of contract has a variation clause that does not vitiate the contract.

Even projects for historical public building refurbishment works, which were traditionally tendered and contracted on a provisional basis with a schedule of rates, incorporated a new PWC “heritage strategy” that required an investigative works contract to be carried out in advance. This was to uncover and record what lay beneath the rotting fabric of a building so that the architect could ‘comprehensively’ complete their design. This scope was then tendered and contracted on a fixed-price lump-sum basis. That process, although looking good on paper, has in my experience not worked out too well either, and even the recent part refurbishment of Leinster House needed

OPI NION a “special iteration” to the standard PWC, which I’m sure helped bring that project in on time and budget without risking any embarrassment of an out-turn cost overrun.

Indeed, this new PWC “comprehensively defined and designed fixed-price lumpsum” regime sounded great in theory to those politicians and journalists who didn’t understand the commercial mechanics of our construction industry. However, lurking beneath the veil of these newly launched PWCs were some very real problems indeed.

A PRECEDENT FOR PROBLEMS

The first element contributing to the perfect storm was that these new PWC contracts had never been used in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world and were simply unleashed upon the Irish public works sector completely unproven.

At least the GDLA 1982 contract used the RIAI 1980 contract as its foundation, which was itself based upon the terminology used in UK equivalent standard forms of building contracts, meaning that the Irish clauses, although not identical to the UK, shared a commonality of interpretation. The Irish IEI civil engineering form of contract was, in fact, almost identical to the UK ICE form and shared commonality of clauses. But by far the most important aspects of the old Irish public works contracts was that both employers and contractors alike could rely upon the UK’s persuasive case precedent for the judicial interpretation of the contract clauses, thereby giving certainty to risk allocation to the parties under the contract.

The issue with introducing an entirely new contract in the form of the 2007 PWCs, was that there was simply no precedent from which the parties could derive any interpretive certainty. Due to the compounding of problems that I address in this article, that unfortunate position remains to this day.

GLOBAL PROBLEMS, LOCAL PROBLEMS

To compound matters even further, the 2008 global financial crisis became the second element to the making of this perfect storm, wherein the Irish construction industry effectively collapsed just as its new infants the PWCs were being put to use.

During those bleak years of recession, many contractors tried their very best to stay afloat, some going abroad to work in completely different jurisdictions. Others stayed home and picked up whatever scraps they could on public maintenance works under the new PWC forms.

During this period, the tendered lump sums on the PWCs did not increase as they ought to have done. This was mostly due to the recession, but also partly because many contractors tendered lump sums still unsure of the ramifications resulting from the new

powers, duties and responsibilities being allocated to each party under the new forms.

Contractors were not alone in this regard, employers’ representatives (ERs) and employers were also unsure of the workings of the new PWCs, and there was a sense of “keep the heads down and keep working”, and any skirmishes (for example, over a 10.3 or the application of a T1 or T2 threshold contingency) never really went anywhere.

In the early days of the recession, nobody really went to dispute. In fact, one might be forgiven for believing that after the first five years, the new PWCs were a success and working just fine.

Effectively, the 2008 crisis resulted in the stunting of any productive assessment of how the PWC performed in practice and whether it actually worked or not. This was because no one had really used it or tested it. We were all just simply trying to survive, and contracts don’t mean a whole lot in those circumstances.

INTERPRETIVE DANCE

Under the new PWC, disputes were to be resolved in the usual way, by step-down conciliation, and then if not resolved, to be finally determined in domestic arbitration under the Arbitration Act 1954.

The 1954 act had a case-stated procedure under Section 35, which was a useful tool at the disposal of an arbitrator who could – if they decided that there was insufficient legal authority available on an issue at large during a reference – seek leave of the high court to have the high court to answer a legal question or questions on the matter.

One would have thought that this case-stated procedure contained in the 1954 act would have been beneficial indeed for building up a library of judicial interpretation of the individual clauses in the PWCs, but alas, that wasn’t to be.

On 08 June 2010, the new arbitration act came into force in Ireland, abolishing the case-stated procedure. This was the third element – the perfect storm was now complete, and the new PWC ship had no rudder and no harbour in sight.

The decision to abolish the case-stated procedure in the new 2010 arbitration act may have been made with the intention of strengthening the protection of arbitral tribunal decisions from court interference, in order to make Ireland a more attractive neutral country for the seat of international arbitrations. But the drafters of the 2010 act perhaps did not appreciate that the country’s construction industry had only three years previously been encumbered with a brand new suite of public works contracts, where there was no authority whatsoever to assist in the interpretation of the clauses therein. So, in 2010, not only was there no persuasive case precedent from other jurisdictions available to assist in PWC

‘These new PWC contracts had never been used in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world, and were simply unleashed upon the Irish public works sector completely unproven’

irishconstructionnews 43 May 2021

OPI NION clause interpretation, but the only portal to create our own case precedent had just been sealed shut by the 2010 arbitration act.

It has remained that way now, for over a decade.

INCREASE IN WORKS, INCREASE IN DISPUTES

As the economy began to recover from the 2008 crash, the volume of public works began to increase again, and with that, the volume of disputes. Interim determinations

by ERs gave rise to disputes, and disputes became more frequent as users each formed a view on how the various PWC clauses and schedules could be interpreted.

There is no formal public record, redacted or otherwise, which logs the outcome, of what must be at this stage, hundreds if not thousands of disputes between public-sector employers and contractors over the past decade.

What our industry does have, is a trail of revisions to the various PWCs where one might suspect that the outcome of some of these confidential disputes has warranted a unilateral change here or edit there. Indeed, taken together, these amendments to the PWCs do form a sort of precedent, albeit not a very judicial or indeed an objective one.

INEQUITABLE REVISIONS

One such unilateral revision was slipped into the tender and schedule in FTS v1.4 on 28 July 2011. It effectively stipulates that each party pays their costs in arbitration, even if they win, and even if the contractor beats an employer’s sealed or Calderbank offer, they still pay their costs. Such a provision became possible when Section 21 of the Arbitration Act 2010 removed the prohibition on contract terms making parties liable for their costs in any event. The idea behind this removal is understood to have been to facilitate US parties to arbitrate their disputes in Ireland, but the effect on Irish disputants seems to have been missed in the process.

This is widely considered a highly inappropriate and inequitable term to be included in a government-drafted PWC. Furthermore, it is a term that contrasts starkly with the rules of the Irish superior courts, where “costs follow the event” – which is also the default position in most other common law systems.

This grossly unfair provision has been unilaterally forced upon all public works contractors who now have no way of recovering their legal and expert costs even when they succeed in defeating a public employer in arbitration.

Because of this grossly unfair term, many contractors simply cannot afford to take a risk of getting a favourable award in arbitration, as their legal and expert costs will be offset against his recovery and will

44 irishconstructionnews May 2021

‘The responsibility of a third-party neutral to a dispute cannot be understated and is of paramount importance to the entire construction industry’ most likely dilute if not drown out the quantum of the substantive award.

This provision also wholly destroys the Calderbank sealed offer procedure that is crucial to trigger parties into properly assessing and reassessing their risk exposure to costs and settlement expectation during the arbitration referral.

The most experienced practitioners will be only too aware that many arbitrations do not go all the way to a final award.

But instead, they are settled in a parallel confidential mediation process because a party’s live risk profile changes during the pleading, discovery and plenary processes of arbitration. As is well understood, the award of, and liability for costs, is an intrinsic part of the dispute resolution process in construction. That crucial element was unilaterally stripped away, making arbitration somewhat of an impotent procedure from the contractor’s perspective.

Ireland, as a member state in the EU and of the common market for EU tendering of public works projects above €5m, cannot allow inappropriate and inequitable provisions remain in its PWCs, which effectively deprive public works contractors access to due process, to go unaddressed.

SO, WHERE ARE WE CURRENTLY? This article opened with the words, “Resolving a disputed public works final account with the assistance of a thirdparty neutral is now as much a part of the construction process today as the physical setting out of the works. However, this is simply not the way it ought to be, and it’s high time that it is fixed.”

What I have found, is that public

employers and their representatives make interpretations and determinations on PWC 10.3 claims based upon a “rehearsed party line” of what a particular clause was intended to mean by the drafters, rather than forming an independent and objective view themselves of what it actually means.

Often, a weaker or less-learned participant of a PWC does not consider the merits of how a clause or provision may have (or could have) been interpreted at the time of tender.

One often surmises that the participant is perhaps following a circular of orders that instructs the only internal interpretation allowable. This is often what triggers a contractual dispute on the PWCs, which is then referred to a third-party neutral for assistance.

In my experience, this is where the entire process starts to heave under its own dead weight.

The responsibility of a third-party neutral to a dispute cannot be understated and is of paramount importance to the entire construction industry. Some exceptional practitioners understand this responsibility fully and can provide that highly valued neutrality and objectivity with competence and conviction – traits that are particularly required by conciliators, adjudicators, mediators and arbitrators alike.

Unfortunately, others have been drawn to the field of ADR as third-party neutrals, but they suffer from an unconscious bias, never fully shaking off their previous careers and, without the benefit of judicial case precedent direction, they are being retained and appointed because of their own consistent and unchanging interpretations of the PWCs. This is simply not acceptable anymore, and after a decade of PWC uncertainty, we, as an industry, have a responsibility to fix this problem now.

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

If we amend the Arbitration Act 2010 and reinstate the case-stated procedure, we can build up a case precedent of judicial interpretation of PWC clauses; the way that it ought to be in a common-law jurisdiction like Ireland. This will provide certainty and assist the third-party neutral in making robust decisions.

Remove the term in the PWCs that parties pay their own costs in arbitration and revert to costs following the event as per the rules of the superior courts. Also, remove the amendments that adversely affect the traditional Calderbank procedure.

Contact John FFF O’Brien, Principal, John FFF O’Brien Ltd, Dispute Resolution & Legal Support Consultants by phone at 01 2544045, email: info@johnfarageobrien.ie, or visit www.johnfarageobrien.ie

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irishconstructionnews 45 May 2021

OPI NION

Professional indem nity insurance: Nav ig atin g th r o u g h th e s to rm GRAEME TINNEY, CEO, Griffiths & Armour Europe DAC, outlines the conditions within the professional indemnity insurance market and what firms should be considering in advance of their 2021 renewal.

M

Graeme Tinney, CEO, Griff iths & Armour Europe DAC.

any firms have reported difficulties in sourcing professional indemnity (PI) insurance. We’ve frequently spoken about the insurance market cycle and the specific challenges for construction PI. When the market is well capitalised, insurance cover is readily available, but as capital drains away, there can be a shortage of supply with no concurrent reduction in demand.

2020 saw the worst market contraction for over 20 years, and I don’t think we can over-emphasise the impact that has had on consultants and contractors. Premiums are certainly increasing, but perhaps even more significantly, we are also regularly encountering firms who have been unable to source insurance protection or to maintain the specification of cover they previously held.

Therefore, there is the prospect that some firms may now be operating without cover, and that has much broader implications for employers and other members of the design and construction team.

DEMAND AND SUPPLY

The challenges firms trying to source PI insurance face are down to the issue of demand and supply. There simply is not enough capacity within the PI market to deal with the volume or scale of demand, whether it’s the number of firms seeking insurance or the amount of cover they are looking to hold.

Those insurers remaining in the market are also subject to increased internal scrutiny, which is reflected in the: • Number and percentage of risks they are able to underwrite • Limits of indemnity they are in a position to support • Levels of premium they are required to charge • Restrictions in cover they are seeking (or are required) to impose • Amount of risk (by way of Policy Excess) they require policyholders to retain.

While the local market has recently seen the arrival of some new capital, capacity problems seem set to continue, and firms should be prepared for the fact that their PI renewal may prove to be their most difficult

46 irishconstructionnews May 2021

negotiation in 2021.

A GLOBAL ISSUE

It should be noted that these challenges are not particular to construction or indeed Ireland.

Many of these issues are global and as a subset of the broader PI market, construction PI has always presented a particular set of challenges. Liabilities are notoriously long-tail, and quite often, a very small number of (large) claims can determine the performance of an insurer’s portfolio or the market as a whole. This is not peculiar to Ireland, but there is increased volatility, given the relative scale of the local market, the impact of larger claims and the risk of aggregation, where insurers may be insuring several parties on the same project.

Historically, Ireland has also been reliant upon UK insurers to provide capacity. Brexit and the removal of “passporting” rights has presented some challenges and a further reduction in supply, but we also need to look at underlying causes. Sometimes Ireland is seen by insurers as “a difficult place to do business”. This can be attributed to: • The time and costs associated with defending claims • The potential for multi-party actions • The legacy of the “Celtic Tiger” years, etc.

Added to that is a perceived “risk dumping” mentality, with certain employers seemingly determined to force unreasonable levels of risk down the supply chain. Ultimately, that feeds into a negative perception of the liability landscape within construction, at a time in the insurance cycle when it is in the interests of all parties to be creating conditions that encourage insurer appetite.

ADDRESSING THE ISSUES

People will be familiar with the broader actions being taken by the government around insurance reform. I am also encouraged by some of the conversations that are now taking place around public sector procurement.

But what we need is very clear action to address the risk-versus-reward imbalance. It is something construction industry bodies have been pushing for, and I am hopeful that we will begin to see the introduction of

OPI NION a more sustainable liability and insurance regime with a more equitable apportionment of risk between the client and their design and construction team.

In the meantime, firms should seriously consider putting PI insurance at the centre of their decision making. For the next prospective client, the next project, the next contract they are considering, they should be looking at what are the associated risks, can they be managed, and how are those risks going to be viewed when it comes to the renewal of their PI insurance. These are the questions firms need to be asking and, particularly so, if those opportunities are in sectors that might be regarded as higher risk.

A RAGING STORM

Some commentators have spoken of a storm raging in the PI insurance market.

We perhaps need to think about the causes of the storm. As brokers, we cannot control that storm, but we can help firms to navigate their way through it. Over the past year, we have come to the assistance of many firms, but time has been key to achieving better outcomes: In managing the renewal of PI insurance, we need to: • Understand the particular requirements of a firm

• Prepare a comprehensive submission for insurers • Explore the alternatives to establish an engagement plan • Set out the reasons for our recommendations.

GRIFFITHS & ARMOUR EUROPE DAC

If firms have concerns regarding their existing PI arrangements, Griffiths & Armour would be more than happy to try to assist, but the advice is “don’t wait until renewal is upon you, get in touch early and let’s make sure we have sufficient time to help you achieve the best possible outcome’.

Graeme Tinney is the CEO of Griffiths & Armour Europe DAC, specialist professional indemnity insurance brokers and risk managers that look after the interests of approximately 400 construction consultancy firms in Ireland and act as PI insurance advisers to ACEI and Engineers Ireland.

If you have an enquiry about PI insurance or related matters, email Graeme Tinney at gtinney@griffithsandarmour.com or visit www.griffithsandarmour.com Griffiths & Armour Europe DAC is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.

‘Firms should be prepared for the fact that their PI renewal may prove to be their most difficult negotiation in 2021’

S I X T H I N G S T O C O N S I D E R BEFORE YO UR NE X T PI INSURANC E RENEWAL The PI market is going to remain challenging for the foreseeable future. To some extent, the supply of capital shortage means that firms are competing for insurers to take on their risk.

MORE INFORMATION NEEDED

PRESENTING RISK

REMOTE WORKING ISSUE

Quite often, a failure to secure a favourable outcome on renewal is about how the risk has been presented to insurers. Firms should not underestimate the strength of a well-crafted submission identifying particular risk features their business presents, constructing a narrative around why those risks have been identified and explaining to insurers how they have been understood and mitigated. If you can tell a good story about how you run your business, you need to make sure that your insurer hears it from a source that they respect and trust.

ENGAGE EARLY

Early engagement with your broker is vital to allow adequate time to deal with issues that may arise throughout the renewal process.

If your existing insurer has chosen to withdraw from your sector or is only prepared to offer aggregated coverage, the earlier you know about this, the more time you have to explore alternative solutions. Even smaller firms should engage with their broker at least two months in advance to ensure there is sufficient time to navigate problems that could well arise. Much larger firms should be engaging as much as six months ahead of a renewal date.

Insurers are requesting far more information than ever before – be prepared to answer additional questions about your business.

With the implementation of lockdown and most practices working from home, we have all had to adapt our working practices.

Insurers will want to understand how risk management procedures continue to be implemented in this changed environment.

For instance, how do you go about the quality assurance process, who signs off on work undertaken by more junior staff?

CONTRACTUAL RISK MANAGEMENT

Insurers will also want to understand your contractual risk management procedures: do you use them; do you use industry-standard documents? If not, are you successful in managing liability by way of financial caps and exclusions?

POST-CLAIM REVIEW

Those who have been unfortunate enough to be involved in a claim, prepare to be under more scrutiny. A post-claim review may be required by insurers, but even where it isn’t, drawing up a “lessons learned” document can be a highly effective way to show that you have actively taken steps to avoid similar issues or situations in the future.

irishconstructionnews 47 May 2021

OPI NION

A d ju d ic a t io n d e c is io n e n f o r c e d – The courts signal support for adjudication JAMES GOLDEN, Director, Quigg Golden, writes that if contractors are going to survive, they need to get rapid resolutions to disputes and get the money they are entitled to quickly.

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n 26 January 2021, the high courthanded down its judgement in Gravity Construction Limited v Total Highway Maintenance Limited, enforcing an adjudicator’s decision and awarding the claimant all its costs.

The right to adjudicate a payment dispute has been a statutory right in construction contracts since 2016, mandated by the Construction Contracts Act 2013. Adjudication is designed to settle disputes speedily and economically. The process itself (once an adjudicator is appointed) is restricted to 28 days, although it can be extended with the consent of the parties.

The process begins when a claimant issues a payment claim that is not paid in the time allowed by the payer. The claimant can then issue a notice on the other party stating its intention to adjudicate. Both the payment notice and the notice to adjudicate have to

48 irishconstructionnews May 2021

comply with the very restrictive requirements of the statutory regime set up under the act. If the parties cannot agree on an adjudicator within the stipulated five days, the adjudicator is appointed by the chairperson of a panel of adjudicators established under the act. The parties have to make their submissions as directed by the adjudicator, and the adjudicator decides the dispute. The loser must obey, or else!

It is the “or else” that has become something of a problem.

Although a decision of the adjudicator is stipulated by the act to be binding, it is not uncommon to see embittered losers either not complying with decisions promptly or ignoring them completely. In order to enforce the decision, the winner must go to court.

However, the process of enforcing a decision through the court has been slow and (so far) uncertain since no one has enforced a deci-

OPI NION sion under the statutory regime until Gravity blazed the trail. Respondents have run cases to try to stop the adjudication process before a decision has even been reached. A large international property developer managed to get the courts to halt an adjudication process last spring and summer by putting it into judicial review, albeit the case settled before the court decided the matter. Between the backlog created by Covid-19 and the uncertainty about the correct process to be used, a number of adjudication enforcement cases have been languishing in the courts. This is a marked contrast with the very robust enforcement of adjudication decision we see in England and even north of the border here, where the courts have managed to continue to deal with adjudication enforcement despite the implications of the pandemic.

So, it comes as much-needed relief to many that the high court signalled its support for the adjudication process in the Gravity judgment.

Back on 28 April 2020, the adjudicator decided that Total Highway had to pay Gravity €135,458.92 + VAT for its claim, plus the adjudicator’s costs of €13,168.75 +VAT, within 14 days of the decision. Total Highway did not comply, so Gravity went to the high court to get the decision enforced. This finally happened on 26 January 2021.

Two interesting points strike me from this case: 1) Gravity was awarded all its costs (despite there having been a botched attempt to settle the matter by Total Highway), so the overall cost to Total Highway of resisting the decision will be tens of thousands of euros more than simply complying; and, 2) It took a long time for Gravity to get to the result. Nine months from the adjudicator’s decision and undoubtedly a lot longer from it was entitled to the money under the contract and first made its claim. Gravity will have been labouring with a hole in its cashflow of over €135,000 for over a year. That is not a “28-day process”. So, claimants who need the money need to get going as quickly as possible from they are entitled to make their claim.

IN CONCLUSION

This is an important decision, and it is very helpful. But there are some key lessons that everyone who wants to use adjudication should learn: 1. Get started on the process, and keep going if you want to get to your money.

It’s quite clear that the process is not as fast as it was designed to be, so procrastination could be fatal. The process starts with the claim, so you need to get your payment claim right, get it submitted, and don’t hang around once it is not paid;

James Golden, Director, Quigg Golden.

2. The statutory process is not easy. The forms are not user friendly, and errors can derail the process. It can be a difficult road, so getting good advice early is extremely important. Remember, Gravity’s claim started with a payment notice, which an adjudicator was convinced meant it should be paid €135,000. If it had got that notice wrong or failed to convince in the submissions to the adjudicator, it would have lost.

Therefore, kicking off the whole process is extremely important. The road to the decision and to eventual enforcement has pitfalls, and claimants need to be aware of those and get good advice to navigate past them. The flip side is also true; respondents need to know how to avoid vexatious claims; and, 3. The court process so far does not really support a 28-day rapid dispute resolution process. That is frustrating (and claimants need to be ready for it). The courts need to become more attuned to the aims of the Construction Contracts Act 2013. Even without Covid-19, the courts would struggle to enforce quickly.

However, there is now a clear indication that given the chance, the courts are behind the process. That is something of a relief.

‘The parties have to make their submissions as directed by the Adjudicator, and the Adjudicator decides the dispute. The loser must obey, or else!’

Between Covid-19 and Brexit, there are difficult times ahead for the whole construction industry. It will be extremely important to many businesses if they’re going to survive to be able to get a rapid and effective resolution to disputes and consequently be able to get the money to which they are entitled. This case is at least a step in the right direction.

irishconstructionnews 49 May 2021

OPI NION

Precast concrete wall panels being installed on a building project.

Irish construc tion has still not realised the f u ll p ote ntia l o f M M C MICHAEL O’REILLY, Director, O’Connor Sutton Cronin, writes about how modern methods of construction, and in particular off-site manufacturing, is delivering solutions for Irish construction, but the sector needs to address several issues before it can fully benefit from the construction method.

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Michael O’Reilly, Director, OCSC.

50 irishconstructionnews May 2021

he construction industry is constantly evolving, sometimes in reaction to impositions on the market, sometimes with a longer-term strategic view.

But in the past year, the Covid-19 pandemic turned everything on its head, forcing us as an industry to review everything that we do, overhaul how sites operate and reassess the process by which we deliver our built environment.

One aspect that will change irrevocably for many consultants and contractors is the increased reliance on Modern Methods of Construction (MMC). But several elements need to put in place before we can say that we have a workable system that will get the full benefit that MMC has to offer.

Health and safety requirements, compliance with building standards, skills shortages, achieving high levels of thermal

and acoustic performance, reducing waste and site vehicle movements, and achieving greater efficiencies and shorter build times are all factors that have been ushering in the use of MMC on projects over the past 20plus years. And it now appears that MMC is set to play a more significant part in how we build somewhat earlier than might have been imagined hitherto.

AN UMBRELLA TERM

MMC is an umbrella term used to define numerous processes that encompass preengineered and prefabricated elements, which reduce the level of on-site labour required and also provide programme certainty.

Today, MMC covers many forms: Concrete insitu formwork systems; jumpform and slip form; precast cores and

OPI NION precast concrete solid panels; twin walls; and prefinished insulated precast external façade panels. There are also full external wall panel systems, internal-external-insulated panels with and without windows. Bathroom and kitchen pods offer significant time savings, assuming there was substantial repetition. Once heavyweight, newer versions are lightweight and come with or without floors. Timber frame also provides considerable time savings on residential housing development. Light metal frame systems offer a pre-engineered solution. Commercial developments are also opened up to steel frame, pressed metal flooring systems, and encased ASBs to reduce the applied fire rating requirements. Siphonic drainage systems reduce the number of downpipes and the extent of external civil drainage requirements. It should be noted that many of the fast-build Covid-19 medical facilities could not have been constructed without MMC. The various types and categories of MMC are probably most easily understood from the pictogram below.

Pictogram displaying categories of MMC.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MMC

At the height of the last boom, the scale and number of projects on site moved at an astonishing pace. At the height, the Irish construction sector outputted over 93,000 residential units in 2006.

It was also a time when the construction sector used various forms of MMC to deliver projects quicker and more efficiently.

More recently, construction technology has been evolving at astonishing speed. The growth of Lean, building information modelling (BIM), and other digital construction techniques, as well as the requirement for more energy-efficient buildings, has meant that consultants and contractors are better placed to use off-site construction for sustainable and efficient solutions.

Covid-19 has highlighted the need for engineers and contractors to find new, safer and more efficient ways of delivering our built environment. But Covid-19 has also been instrumental in creating a sea-change in Irish construction. Looking to the immediate future, while consultants will be looking for more cost-effective and sustainable build solutions, contractors will be looking to reduce the number of personnel on their sites with the result that MMC will be an integral part of the Irish construction landscape going forward.

Many specialist contractors and main contractors have responded by establishing off-site facilities to meet their and the broader market’s needs.

INNOVATION AND DIGITAL ADOPTION SUB-GROUP

At government level, in 2019, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) commissioned the KPMG/Future Analytics Report on “Productivity in the Irish Construction Industry”. This report identified seven priority actions as needing to be implemented in the context of delivering the next National Development Plan.

The Construction Sector Group (CSG), comprising Government and industry, set up the Innovation and Digital Adoption Sub-Group to implement these seven actions. MMC is one of the seven actions identified.

An MMC working group was set up to report back on the

Timber frame housing. requirements for establishing a sustainable MMC market in Ireland.

The working group defines MMC as including modularisation, off-site fabrication, off-site design and manufacture, and a range of other technologies and methodologies. It sees the ultimate goal of MMC as cutting down on labour, reducing costs and build time, and ultimately delivering greater value for clients.

Digital Adoption Sub-Group chairperson PJ Rudden is quoted as saying MMC is meant to deliver the most efficient construction methods using BIM to increase innovation and digital adoption with minimal wastage on circular economy principles. But despite its use in some sectors, the industry as a whole has been relatively slow to adopt MMC and other advanced methodologies.

IN CONCLUSION

If MMC is to transform Irish construction, several obstacles will have to be overcome first.

Productivity in Irish construction is still not high enough, and digital adoption is low. From a consultant’s point of view, there are challenges relating to involvement in the pre-planning process and certification of systems that need to be addressed.

Early integration of MMC specialists within the design team is critical to get the best outcome for the project. To date, MMC specialists have tended to be only brought on board on projects at tender stage. The reality is that the MMC specialists need to be on board at the earliest possible time. Bringing them in at the preplanning stage means the consultant team has an MMC specialist to offer solutions that can be fed into their design decisions. At the moment, in most cases, plans are presented to the MMC specialist without them having had any input to the design, with the result that it is not always possible to make palatable changes.

Certification and split responsibility is the second most critical issue for consultants and assigned certifiers. Work is required by all in the industry to understand what and when is the split, who certifies, when is it inspected, what type of certification is required and who provides it.

These issues are not insurmountable, but more engagement between the construction industry and professional bodies will be required.

In closing, the ongoing integration of third-level universities, colleges, institutes and apprenticeship programmes, coupled with developments in BIM and digital construction technologies, are the foundation stones for the future development of MMC in Ireland.

Between the work of the cross-sector Digital Adoption Sub-Group and the changes that have already taken place on sites across the country, it is up to the industry to make the changes that will make MMC work for everyone.

Michael O’Reilly is a director with O’Connor Sutton Cronin, with a focus on Structural and Civil Engineering design excellence. He is the incoming honorary secretary of the ACEI and sits on the ACEI Structures Committee.

irishconstructionnews 51 May 2021

SECTOR F OCUS

‘If she can’t see it, she can’t be it’

Female students need to know they have a p la c e in e n g in e e rin g Eve Cassidy, Civil Engineer, Kirby Group Engineering.

EVE CASSIDY, Civil Engineer, Kirby Group Engineering, would love to see more women in her industry.

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an idea of what could work for me. It set me on a path to my choice of course at University of Limerick, where I got to study different strands of engineering – mechanical, electrical and civil – before I needed to specialise.

WOMEN IN ENGINEERING

s an engineering graduate, I was pleased to see a report recently showing Ireland leads the way in Europe for the number of STEM graduates it produces. It’s a testament to the hard work of people following careers in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields in this country. Unfortunately, when you look a little closer, we’re not doing great when it comes to the gender divide in this area. In 2018, Ireland produced a little over 47 male STEM graduates per 1,000, compared to just 23 females.

I’ve seen this in action myself – just 10% of my university graduating class were female.

Seeing examples of women in the engineering industry is the type of role model female students need. It sounds simple, but it really does break down barriers. With my employer, I’ve been proud to play a small part in this approach. I work at Kirby Group Engineering, and a couple of years ago, they asked me to participate in an advertising campaign to help recruit engineers, particularly women. It was a great opportunity to pay forward the benefit I got from engineering role models during my school days.

AN EXCITING CAREER

I’ve been with Kirby since my professional career started via a college placement. It was a fantastic way to get out into the real world and see how I could work alongside mechanical and electrical colleagues on large projects right across Europe. The firm invests in new talent, and we got to travel to sites in England and Scotland to see projects in reality that we had been working on virtually back in Ireland. The placement opened up a whole new horizon for me, and I couldn’t wait to get started when my course finished. I got a place on Kirby’s graduate programme and haven’t looked back. These days, our civil engineering team within the power transmission and distribution business unit acts almost as a middle man between the site and the project designer.

My role with Kirby has given me exposure to an incredibly diverse range of projects, some unique in Ireland, like current ones exploring battery storage.

If you’re a woman reading this who thinks engineering could be the future for you, I say go for it. You’ve no idea how varied the role can be, and the skills you will learn can bring you anywhere in the world. I’m a few years into my career, and I’m still amazed at the horizons that are opening before me. The support is there, the mentors are there; they’re just waiting for you.

A career in engineering is diverse, exciting, challenging, and, most of all, fulfilling. As a civil engineer, my expertise can be applied to anything. You could travel anywhere around the world and find someone who trained in civil engineering before transferring that experience to an extensive variety of roles. So it’s a great job, and I’m living proof that there is no reason women can’t be first-rate engineers. So, why aren’t there more of us?

A NEW APPROACH IS NEEDED

It’s not the case that young women aren’t interested in engineering.

When I spoke at a careers evening at my old school, I got plenty of feedback from the young women wondering what this career path is like. Something more is needed to access and utilise the engineering potential in this cohort of students.

The solution to this could well lie in an approach that’s been successful in other areas of society in recent years. “If she can’t see it, she can’t be it” could have applied to me. If I hadn’t had access to relevant speakers and school initiatives at second level, particularly in transition year, I might not have found this path that I love. Hearing industry experts speak about their experiences really helped me form

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A CAREER AT KIRBY GROUP ENGINEERING

SECTOR F OCUS

‘It is im p e rativ e w e u s e th is tim e to r e n e w and refocus’ Michael O’Donohoe, President, Hardware Association Ireland.

New Hardware Association Ireland president MICHAEL O’DONOHOE, Country Director Ireland, Wavin, discusses his priorities for the association in the coming year.

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ichael O’Donohoe joined Wavin in 2008 and is its country director for Ireland. He came to the construction industry from a background in the pharma/biotech sectors and was recently appointed president of the Hardware Association Ireland (HAI). He says that his immediate priority for HAI is to help members through the current uncertainties.

“My priority is to ensure that HAI continues to provide the supports and training for businesses seeking to navigate the critical issues of Covid-19 and Brexit.

We must continue to seek opportunities for our membership and engage with the government on the issues that affect the hardware and building materials sector.”

ADDRESSING ECONOMIC CHALLENGES

He continues: “Our industry has been hugely affected by the past 14 months of economic uncertainty. I am very conscious that businesses need continued support, both at a regional and national level. Our local hardware personnel provide a huge wealth of knowledge to their customers throughout the entire country.”

Among his longer-term goals is a drive to improve quality standards in the building materials and construction sector.

“Building control authorities are badly under-resourced, and we have a great chance now to get the sector into a better space for the future.”

O’Donohoe has been a board member of HAI for four years as one of two supplier representatives. He comments that Covid-19 restrictions have had a huge impact on the industry.

“Staff members are working under stressful conditions; restrictions have left us with limited supplies, and business owners are implementing new health and safety

guidelines. It is imperative that the industry uses this time to renew and refocus as the economy returns to a new level of normality.

“Hardware is an old-fashioned business that needs to continue to compete.

Investment in technology is an essential tool for any business, particularly in the 21st century. Retail must be available 24 hours a day. This is where the government needs to support our industry most.”

EMERGING DIY MARKETS

He adds that home improvement programmes/searches/influencers are now more in vogue than ever.

“This was one of the positive elements of people spending less time out of their homes and having more money to spend. The new DIYers’ age profile is younger, giving us a new group of consumers who previously weren’t interested in home improvements.

DIY has become much more popular as people spend more time in their homes and gardens – the expert advice consumers receive from the hardware professionals cannot be overstated.

“There is a surge in interest in gardening and growing, be it on a window ledge or a patch of grass. Local service delivered by local people is something that we all want – the “Shop Local’” campaign is a testament to this – who wants to live near a main street with nothing open? Maintaining this DIY interest for consumers will be a challenge for our members as discretionary spending on holidays and luxury items return in tandem with the economy reopening. Customer care, locally owned, product knowledge and being embedded in the community are vital pillars of our industry.”

RETROFITTING PROGRAMMES

O’Donohoe says that the green message of renewable and efficient energy resources is

especially relevant for the hardware industry, with carbon footprints, certification and ethical sourcing more sought after than ever before.

“HAI members will be key partners in providing knowledge and products for Ireland’s ambitious energy retrofitting plans.

The restrictions on the construction industry have been huge at a time when demand for new homes has never been greater. This is a major concern for the government, which has had to balance safety issues relating to Covid-19 against the importance of providing social housing immediately, with waiting lists remaining stubbornly high,” he concludes.

HARDWARE ASSOCIATION IRELAND The Hardware Association Ireland is the representative body of Irish hardware and DIY retailers, builders’ merchants, distributors and manufacturers.

It represents over 400 members nationwide, who have a turnover of €2.5bn, with 26,000 staff working in the sector.

The key supports the HAI provides are: • Representation and lobbying • Business support – HR advice, corporate partners, and phone assistance • Market intelligence – Regular industry research • Providing regular news and updates to all members, including seminars and trade shows • Training and development – A regularly updated range of sector courses • Careers portal – Hardware jobs.

irishconstructionnews 53 May 2021

SUSTAI NABI LIT Y

Enterprise Ire land ’s R e a d y f o r a Gre e n Fu tu re c a m p a ig n features Irish construc tion innovators

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nterprise Ireland has launched an international campaign, “Ready for a Green Future“, which is designed to promote Irish green innovators delivering sustainable and low carbon solutions to tackle the climate challenge. The campaign, which features 10 Irish companies, including Cygnum and Ecocem, showcases Irish green innovators who are solving complex technical challenges and delivering sustainable and low-carbon solutions to make renewable energy viable, reduce energy waste with smart technology, reduce agricultural waste, and make construction cleaner.

GREEN INNOVATORS

Launching the programme for St Patrick’s Day, Táinaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar said that St Patrick’s Day is the day the world turns green as we come together to celebrate our national holiday. “It’s also a great opportunity to showcase Ireland’s green innovators and the positive contribution they are making to industries across the world,” The Táinaiste added that moving away from fossil fuels and decoupling emissions from economic progress is the biggest challenge facing this generation.

Julie Sinnamon, CEO, Enterprise Ireland.

STRATEGIC PRIORIT Y

Julie Sinnamon, CEO, Enterprise Ireland, said that a key strategic priority for Enterprise Ireland is to support Irish companies to reduce their carbon footprint

54 irishconstructionnews May 2021

John Desmond, Managing Director, Cygnum Timber Frame.

and capitalise on opportunities emerging from the low-carbon transition.

“As Irish businesses recover from the impact of Covid-19, we also need to build resilience and work with researchers and innovators to ensure Irish companies are fully prepared and have the capabilities in place to meet the challenges of climate change and the substantial changes required across society to meet national and EU emissions targets, new standards, and changing consumer and buyer preferences,” the Enterprise Ireland CEO said.

She added that research, innovation and new technologies would play a vital role in enabling a greener future.

A GREAT STORY TO TELL

Cygnum Timber Frame is one of the 10 companies selected for the campaign. John Desmond, Managing Director, Cygnum Timber Frame, commented: “Ireland has a great story to tell on the number of our companies in construction and further afield with very strong ‘green’ credentials.

Cygnum is delighted to have been selected

by Enterprise Ireland to be part of the Ready for a Green Future campaign. It’s a really positive endorsement of the work we do and is giving us great exposure both at home and abroad.”

The 10 Irish green innovators featured in the Ready for a Green Future campaign are Cygnum, Ecocem, Davra, Abbey Machinery, Keenan, CitySwift, GridBeyond, Hanley, Energy, Ocean Energy, and XOCEAN.

SUSTAI NABI LIT Y

House builders need to ac t now to take the lead in addressing e m b o d ie d c a r b o n in f u tu r e d e v e lo p m e nt s Susan McGarry, Managing Director, Ecocem Ireland.

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SUSAN MCGARRY, Managing Director, Ecocem Ireland, writes about how the revised Climate Action Bill has forced a significant rethink on the materials that will go into our future buildings.

s full construction returns, Ecocem Ireland’s focus is firmly set on the government’s future residential development plans.

Forecasts consistently indicate that 35,000 new homes are needed each year for the next 20 years, or 700,000 new units in total. This target will be a real challenge to achieve. But now, the need for developers to reduce embodied carbon in buildings is an additional factor to increase the challenge.

In recent years, the focus has been on operational costs of buildings and has been reflected by several iterations of Part L of the building regulations. Though this area will continue to be scrutinised, there will also be a much greater focus on the embodied carbon of buildings. Specifiers and developers will be challenged to reduce embodied carbon on new developments, and this can only be achieved through the specification of low carbon materials.

Carbon reduction objectives have been incorporated into the revised Climate Action Bill, and a significant rethink will be required to meet reduction targets in the built environment sector.

SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION

With the increase in housing output over the coming years, sustainable construction will be crucial in reducing carbon emissions. Local authorities will be required to set and adhere rigorously to their specific carbon budgets. These challenges will also apply to centrally-funded government projects.

Research has shown that the average embodied carbon of construction materials used in new residential housing and apartment developments is around 30 tonnes of CO2 per dwelling.

Traditional cement-based products account for roughly half of this carbon. Therefore, a significant step can be taken to reduce this figure by specifying low-carbon cement in all concrete products. This includes ready mix concrete, traditional blocks, precast concrete, and mortars.

Founded in 2003, Ecocem is an Irish owned company and Europe’s largest independent producer of ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS), a recycled by-product of the steel industry that contributes to the circular economy by replacing up to 70% of the cement required in concrete.

In Ireland, GGBS is predominantly used in ready-mix and precast concrete. Ecocem has invested in innovation and is enabling the adaption and increased usage of GGBS in other products, such as blocks, mortar, and, more recently, soil stabilisation.

SUSTAINABLE INNOVATIONS

Soil stabilisation is an exciting example. Traditionally, unsuitable soil would have been removed from building sites and transported to landfill. Replacement soil would then need to be located and supplied to site, facilitating a considerable increase in site traffic and disruption around multiple locations. It is becoming more common

Low-carbon blocks from Coshla Quarries with 50% Ecocem. in recent years to treat the soil on site to enhance its composition and make it suitable for use. The most common solutions involve mixing the soil with Portland cement or a cement/quicklime blend to increase the structural performance and stabilise chemical impurities. However, recent studies have shown that environmental and technical performance can be enhanced significantly by replacing high percentages of these additives with GGBS.

ENVIRONMENTAL PRODUCT DECLARATIONS

Ecocem GGBS carries its own Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), an independently verified and registered document that communicates comparable information about the life-cycle environmental impact of products. With a CO2 value of 32kgs per tonne compared to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) at 802kgs per tonne, Ecocem GGBS has been shown to significantly reduce the embodied carbon of concrete while delivering numerous technical benefits. GGBS increases the strength, durability, and chemical resistance of concrete, to name but a few and can be utilised across all traditional cement applications.

When Ecocem GGBS is used at high cement replacement rates, the savings are notable (up to 67% in some applications). As cement accounts for around 90% of the embodied carbon of concrete, it is clear why many specifiers have switched.

We have now entered a new world of low-carbon building and living, and the changes required are urgent and immediate and are part of Ireland’s commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050.

For more information on improving your mix designs and overall carbon reduction on your next project, contact Don Davern, 086 2509015, email ddavern@ecocem.ie or visit the Ecocem website www. ecocem.ie.

irishconstructionnews 55 May 2021

SUSTAI NABI LIT Y

GOc ha rg e e le c tric v e h ic le c h a r g i n g solutions for house builders With pressure on most governments to act on climate change and the Irish Government’s target to have 950,000 electric vehicles on our roads by 2030, there are significant changes on the horizon for homebuilders.

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n response to the government’s commitments and the new European Union Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) coming into force, most local authorities appear to be specifying that electric vehicle (EV) charge points are included in new developments.

WHAT IS GOCHARGE?

GOcharge operates a reliable and convenient car charging network throughout Ireland for EV drivers With the vast majority of EV charging expected to take place at home, GOcharge offers a fully managed service for residents and management companies. Its objective is to make EV charging as straightforward as possible. GOcharge understands that EV charging is not necessary for everyone in today’s housing market, but for some, it is a priority.

Sharon O’Brien, Director, GOcharge, explains: “We have simplified the process to ensure that residents and management companies are not burdened with installation, maintenance, load management between vehicles charging simultaneously or working out the billing of electricity consumed by the EV chargers. We take care of everything.”

CASE STUDY

GOcharge was recently tasked with providing a solution to Alanna Homes for a new apartment block in Clonsilla, Dublin.

The local authority specified that at least four spaces in the car park should be serviced to allow for EV charging. Initially, a site survey was carried out and discussed with the developer based on the local authority specification. A location was selected based on the maximum import capacity (MIC) and the power available to run the unit while ensuring that additional units can be easily added as demand dictates.

O’Brien explains that in this instance,

56 irishconstructionnews May 2021

GOcharge provided a “hands-off ” solution to the management company.

“Once the installation is complete, the tenants simply download the GOcharge mobile app and register their account.

Residents only pay for their charging sessions, and the management company is reimbursed for the electricity. We provide 24/7 customer support and maintain the charging station on the GOcharge network.”

Gordon Tobin, Senior Quantity Surveyor, Alanna Homes, says about GOcharge: “This is the ideal solution for us as we are fully compliant with our planning conditions.

Residents have the benefits of EV charging, and GOcharge operates and maintains the charging station, so the management company do not have any day-to-day responsibility for its operation.”

THE FUTURE OF EV CHARGING

Looking to the future and bearing in mind government commitments on the environment, EV charging will be a prerequisite of all new builds, both commercial and residential.

O’Brien adds that GOcharge has invested heavily in its technology, which is based on the leading European EV charge-point platform.

“Our system enables smart charging and is fully automated from the hardware we use

to the software that runs our EV charging network. All of our hardware is connected and future-proofed. We are confident we have a complete solution for housebuilders,” Sharon O’Brien concludes.

To learn more, visit www.gocharge.ie or scan the QR code

SUSTAI NABI LIT Y SINÉAD HICKEY, John Sisk & Son’s Head of Sustainability for Ireland and Europe, speaks with Barry McCall about the contractor’s ambitious sustainability plan.

Building today, c a rin g f o r to m o rr o w

L

ast year, building contractor John Sisk & Son set out its sustainability roadmap for the rest of the decade.

Based on the three pillars of people, planet and performance, the ‘Building today, Caring for tomorrow’ strategy sets out a range of challenging targets linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which will be subject to independent verification.

SUSTAINABILIT Y ROADMAP

Sinéad Hickey, Head of Sustainability for Ireland and Europe, Sisk, says that it is a very ambitious roadmap with five themes and 21 targets.

“We now have to ensure that the targets are met, and to do that, we need to ensure there is a robust governance model in place to achieve the targets,” Hickey explains.

“Board and CEO oversight are critical to bringing the roadmap to life. My experience over the years of organisations that succeed in this area is that leadership and accountability at board level are essential.”

That top-level engagement is baked into the strategy.

“Each of our construction board members sponsors a sustainability working group,” she continues. “These groups address different areas, such as climate change, equality, diversity and inclusion, electric vehicles, social value, etc. And each group is responsible for a range of targets. One of the primary responsibilities of the board members is to support the groups in achieving those targets.”

DYNAMIC TARGETS

“The 21 targets address five different

themes,” she adds. “The targets are dynamic and will evolve and change over time, just as some of the challenges we face will change.”

The five themes cover “responsible business practices”, “enhancing communities”, “embracing innovation and digital technologies”, “tackling climate change and air pollution”, and “caring for the environment”.

“Many of the targets are intertwined and we will see some of the working groups collaborating and coming together to help each other achieve the ambitions. One good example is social value and caring for the environment. For example, there is huge opportunity to deliver social value by engaging with our local communities and supporting biodiversity initiatives. We are excited to see what the opportunities are to deliver a shared value.”

CARBON NEUTRAL PLAN

One of the company’s most ambitious targets is to achieve carbon-neutral status without the need for offsetting by 2030. It means setting a science-based target in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. Sisk has committed to the “Business for Ambition” and is currently undergoing the process of setting a net-zero target in line with a 1.5C future and ensuring it is verified by the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi) .

“Construction and the built environment account for 39% of the world’s carbon emissions. The challenge is real,” Hickey adds. “There are many ways we can achieve this target and one of them is by 2024, 50% of our fleet will be electric vehicles. All internal combustion engine vehicles will

be eliminated from the fleet by 2030. We have also committed to plant 1.7 million trees in natural woodland in Ireland, the UK and Europe, and we are supporting the restoration of peat bogs. We want to achieve zero avoidable waste and eliminate single-use plastics by 2023. We also want to embed circular economy principles into the business. We are also working towards achieving a CDP A rating. CDP is an international organisation that runs a global disclosure system addressing environmental issues. Currently our rating is B-minus, and the global average is C. We are already in the management band, but we want to be a leader. We are working hard to achieve that but we have more work to do.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

But carbon is just part of the picture.

“People’s understanding of sustainability can vary. What do you think responsible business means? It’s how an organisation measures and manages its overall impact on society too. Part of that is supporting a range of organisation, including charities and NGOs, but you also have to think about the social and economic value of contributing to communities through areas like apprenticeships and the supply chain, how you support your employees and addressing issues such as diversity and inclusion. You have to look at all these things and bring them together. Importantly, that is why our targets are aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals,” Sinéad Hickey concludes.

irishconstructionnews 57 May 2021

SUSTAI NABI LIT Y

E c o p la nt – le a d in g th e w ay in the green plant hire revolution Since it first started operations in 2008, Ecoplant has been Ireland’s only dedicated battery- and electric-powered plant hire company. It is committed to meeting all of its customers’ requirements for green, clean, zero-emission, compact and low-noise machines.

B

y the time he founded Ecoplant, Sean Breen, founder and Managing Director, had accumulated extensive engineering experience in core cutting, cement and construction operations at home and abroad. His on-the-ground experience of construction sites informed many of the design decisions for the machinery and plant that Ecoplant offers.

Sean Breen’s vision for the company was to leverage the increasing interest in green construction and develop green products that deliver without compromising power or robustness. Many plant and project managers have begun to see electric- and battery-powered plant as a low hanging fruit in the sustainable construction mix and a more efficient and practical alternative to traditionally-fuelled plant.

CUSTOMISED PLANT SOLUTIONS Ecoplant’s service teams can develop customised plant solutions to meet each client’s specific needs, in addition to offering a comprehensive aftercare service.

ECOPLANT PRODUCTS

Ecoplant’s substantial fleet of the latest battery- and electric-powered plant and machinery is perfect for all types of demolition and construction projects across the construction, tech and pharma sectors.

The full range of plant includes the ED dumper range, battery and electric excavators, robotic machines with breakers, road/wall/floor saws, trench compactors, generators, electric telehandlers, pokers, power floats, conveyors, forklifts, and up to 4.5T robotic demolition machines.

58 irishconstructionnews May 2021

Sean Breen, founder and Managing Director, Ecoplant.

As Ecoplant manufactures many of the products that it supplies, it is ideally placed to analyse user experience and add additional features if required to meet customers’ evolving needs.

“We have designed enhancements and improvements to commercially available excavators, improving power and user operation and delivering reliable improvements and user operability,” explains Breen.

ECOVOLVE

“Our sister company Ecovolve created an energy-efficient battery-powered dump truck and loader range that leads the way in delivering robust, low maintenance, zero emissions construction machinery. Our global distribution network now stretches

from ANZ, through the Middle East, the EU and the UK and into the US, Canada and Latin America markets.”

Breen cites the example of the company’s Robotic Descale Arm as an early innovation that he developed to address a health and safety challenge for the cement manufacturing industry.

“The Robotic Descale Arm is a product we developed for cement production plants in the noughties. This tool is used to descale and demolish refractory and brick inside preheater towers remotely. With its remote capabilities, the Robotic Arm Descale Tool works outside the risk zone. This system and method are suitable in various industries where build-up occurs due to raw material processing. It decreases plant closure times and increases productivity, saving time and money.”

Breen adds that the Ecoplant range is exceptionally robust compared to traditional plant and equipment.

“It is more powerful than traditional plant while being quieter, and, of course, it has no emissions. We only stock plant that does not need on-site fuel and can work a full day once charged.”

GREEN, CLEAN AND SILENT

In short, Breen describes the Ecoplant range as “Green, clean, zero-emission, low-noise specialised plant that can meet any on-site challenge. This is borne out by years of experience of working and using the plant. It is also ergonomically efficient and operator friendly.”

Ecoplant’s customer list includes all of the leading contractors; Sisk, BAM Ireland, John

SUSTAI NABI LIT Y

Ride-On Digger

on hire from Ecoplant or another supplier, the relationship we build is based on what’s best for the project and what’s the most environmentally-friendly solution.

Plus, the reduction in labour costs, the cost of PPE related to those labour hours and the greening of our clients’ projects is something on which we can give impartial advice. This delivers for our clients’ environmental commitments and improves their Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) ratings, which are becoming a very important KPI on projects.”

2 Tonne Hybrid (TB216)

ADDITIONAL BENEFITS

1/2 Tonne (Brokk 60) Remote Digger 1 Tonne Battery Electric Digger Ride-On Digger 1 Tonne Brokk 90 Remote Digger 1.3 Tonne Hybrid (TB210R)

Ride-On Digger 2 Tonne Brokk 180 Remote Digger 3 Tonne Brokk 280 Remote Digger 4 Tonne Brokk 330 Remote Digger Electric Forklift

500Kgs Battery Wheelbarrow

800Kgs / 1 Tonne / 1.5 Tonne Hi-Tip Electric Battery Powered Dumper Truck Ride-On / Walk Behind

Saws (Floor, Wall)

Power floats

Compaction Plate / Wacker

Cable

Generators

Electric Telehandler

Conveyors Folding Portable Yard Ramp Vaculift *can be hired with Multiple machines

Paul, Hegarty Demolition, and many smaller contractors and specialists requiring plant.

Breen adds, “Using our many years of experience and expert knowledge, our team consults with our clients regarding their specific jobs to ensure that they avail of the best combination of plant to meet the new environmental regulations. Whether it’s

Breen says that the plant Ecoplant offers several other distinct advantages over traditional combustion-powered plant.

“Our plant speeds up the completion of projects. Zero emissions reduce the carbon footprint of any build. And, because the equipment is quiet, there is no noise pollution, so in many cases, sites in built-up areas can have extended hours of operation.”

He continues, “The plant also ticks the health and safety box on many levels, including the fact that there is no requirement for flammable fuel stores on site. This also makes sites less attractive for thieves and deals with the whole area of mishandling of fuels.

“The reliability of the plant is also far higher, and therefore servicing is much less. In addition, the plant facilitates better on-site communications.

“Our corporate commitment to a more sustainable business includes a fleet of 100% electric EV delivery and support vans and our off-grid recharging of equipment, both in place and planned. All of our local staff use e-bikes or walk to work, and we will be a fully carbon-neutral company by 2025.”

BETTER ON-SITE COMMUNICATIONS

“An important point is that you can hear your colleagues when working these machines, so information flow is easier.

We’ve had many machines on pharma construction projects across the most recent period. These projects are moving to zero emissions equipment, as noise and fumes are increasingly not being allowed in production environments.”

Breen states that his company’s plant facilitates reductions in job completion timeframes and, as a result, brings follow-on reductions in project costs.

“Our products enable faster job completion, bring reduced fuel costs, increased operator safety, with reduced emissions overall and a greater margin for contractors.”

A new range of telehandlers was recently delivered, with one of the new telehandlers going straight out the door to a pharma project.

“Our diggers are all going very well at the moment,” Breen explains, “and we have new rollers in the pipeline for later this year.

Planned and controlled expansion is how we’ve grown the business over the past few years, as we work to ensure that we have what our customers need when they need it.

HEALTH AND SAFET Y

Health and safety is the priority on all sites.

As we move forward from the Covid-19 shutdowns, we all know that sites will operate differently. Health and safety and the drive for greater efficiency will mean that there will be fewer people on site. Many contractors have also made substantial inroads into reducing their carbon footprint.

So, as standards improve, so too will the quality of the plant used on all sites.

“Ecoplant consults and advises on what is best practice and most efficient for our clients’ projects and jobs. We advise on what is the best combination of equipment to complete the project quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively,” Sean Breen comments.

He adds that Ecoplant is already part of the Irish construction’s green revolution and is making the industry a safer, more attractive place for young people to build a career.

“Having worked in construction, I also know that one of the biggest on-site enemies is unnecessary noise. Look at how quiet tower cranes always have been. This level of operator comfort needs to be delivered on the ground and electrically powered equipment, as well as being more powerful in many instances, is much nicer to work around.”

ADDITIONAL SERVICES

Ecoplant offers full pre-hire training where applicable. It has delivery/collection options from all sites and on-site and off-site support 24/7. In addition, it has an extensive range of back-up equipment available for when unplanned events require fast solutions.

For more details, phone 057 862 6669, email info@ecoplant.ie, visit www.ecoplanthire.ie, or scan the QR code.

A GREEN CONSTRUCTION FUTURE

Ecoplant is currently expanding its fleet.

irishconstructionnews 59 May 2021

Zero

Zero Emissions

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Zero Noise Pollution and staff communication issues on sites Zero Tail on our Hybrids = Compact, Powerful Machines!

Ireland’s ONly all Electric Plant Hire provider, since 2008!

Call us today on 057 8626669, email info@ecoplant.ie or view our videos and see all our plant in action at www.ecoplanthire.ie

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Electric Compaction Plates

60 irishconstructionnews May 2021

Electric Diggers

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Forklifts

Electric Power Floats

Conveyors

Electric Floor Saws

Generators

Electric Wall Saws

Electric Concrete Vibrators

SUSTAI NABI LIT Y

M e r c u r y r e n e w s c a r b o n -r e d u c t i o n p l e d g e

alongside 60 of Ire land ’s largest com panies

Mercury has announced that it has renewed its pledge to set carbon-reduction targets based on climate science under the Low Carbon Pledge programme, which is overseen by Business in the Community Ireland (BITCI).

M

ercury is one of a group of 60 of Ireland’s largest companies to vow to significantly reduce their carbon

footprint.

This renewed pledge requires businesses to set science-based emission reduction targets no later than 2024 – which is based on what climate science indicates is necessary to limit global warming to within 1.5 degrees, a key goal of the United Nation’s Paris climate agreement.

In 2020, Mercury signed BITCI’s low carbon pledge, which is assisting the company in reducing its Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emission intensity by 50% by 2030.

Ann Garbutt, Sustainability & Organisational Development Director, Mercury, said that it is everyone’s duty to protect the planet and find new ways to lessen our footprint and enhance the lives of future generations.

“We are in the process of gathering all of the information required in order to set ourselves targets,” Ann Garbutt explains.

“This data will help us meet our key objective of ultimately becoming as energy efficient as possible while minimising the use of fossil fuels and reducing the generation of waste, carbon and other emissions.

“Our responsible business plan Our Planet, Our Duty aims to ensure that our operations do not negatively impact our environment, but instead contribute to the improvement of life on earth. The carbon pledge puts a structure on this so that we can ensure we are using scientific data to put his aspiration into concrete actions.”

Earlier this year, Mercury launched its Our Planet, Our Duty responsible business plan, in which it promises to help create a more sustainable environment. This forms one of the foundation blocks of ‘Beyond50’, Mercury’s five-year plan to push further and take Mercury beyond its 50th year in business.

Mercury’s five platforms of responsible business are: 1. Environment & Climate Change 2. People, Wellbeing & Safety 3. Technology & Innovation 4. Operations & Value Chain 5. Society & Community.

LOW CARBON PLEDGE

Originally launched in 2018, the Low Carbon Pledge has now evolved and calls on all

Ann Garbutt, Sustainability & Organisational Development Director, Mercury.

Irish businesses to work towards setting science-based emission reduction targets. The pledge demonstrates a meaningful business commitment to reducing carbon emissions and acts as a catalyst for wider initiatives and actions. The pledge is led by the Low Carbon Sub-group of the BITCI Leaders’ Group on Sustainability and endorsed by the Irish government.

Other companies in the construction sector to have taken the pledge include Actavo, Arup, CRH and PM Group.

To learn more about the Business in the Community Ireland Low Carbon Pledge programme, visit www.bitc.ie or scan the QR code

irishconstructionnews 61 May 2021

SUSTAI NABI LIT Y

C onstruc tion we ll placed t o h e lp m e e t g r e e n h o u s e g a s e m is s io ns reduc tion targe ts MICHAEL SLEVIN, Director, KSN, writes about how the government’s plans to reduce Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions by 51% by 2030 will affect the construction sector and what measures can be taken to reduce emissions and improve the energy efficiency of our existing building stock.

W

Michael Slevin, Director, KSN.

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hen it comes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the energy usage of Ireland’s built environment, the primary users of energy and contributors to GHG emissions are the residential, commercial and public service sectors. These are significant final energy users, and are therefore a crucial focus for GHG emissions reductions in the government’s Climate Action Plan. Figure 1 shows the GHG emissions by sector in 2020, while Figure 2 shows the final energy usage by sector for 2019.

When looking at the energy usage in the built environment, we also need to consider the energy/carbon required to construct

SUSTAI NABI LIT Y mixed-use) buildings to have a B BER (or carbon equivalent gains) by 2030 • Ensure a suitable policy framework is in place to support district heating.

ENERGY POVERT Y

A big part of upgrading Ireland’s domestic housing stock provides a huge opportunity to solve the energy poverty crisis. Energy poverty is an inability to light or heat one’s home to an adequate degree, and it currently affects around 17% of Irish households.

Within the government’s Climate Action Plan, a strategy to deal with energy poverty is correctly identified and aims to alleviate the burden on the most vulnerable in society through actions focused on improving the efficiency of homes, supporting lowerincome households with their energy costs and minimising the costs associated with action on climate change. In this regard, several government initiatives focus on upgrading these homes and reducing the levels of fuel poverty.

Figure 1. (Source: EPA).

UPGRADING IRELAND’ S EXISTING RESIDENTIAL STOCK

Figure 2. (Source: SEAI). buildings and their associated materials. This is considered later in this article.

IRELAND’ S BUILDING RETROFIT PROGRAMME

Ireland’s ambitions to improve the energy efficiency and renewable contribution of buildings has been ongoing for over 20 years with step by step iterations of EU targets, Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) improvements, building regulations and various other regulations and innovations. However, it is the recent Climate Action Plan 2019 and Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2021 that demonstrate a firm commitment by the government to achieve tangible results for Ireland.

The new Climate Action Bill provides a framework for Ireland to reduce GHG emissions by 51% by 2030 and become independent in energy production by 2050.

It is ironic that 100 years ago, 1921, during the coal strike in England and Wales that

calls went out for Ireland to become fuel independent. Now in 2021, there is a real opportunity to achieve this.

The main characteristics of the Climate Action Plan with regard to the built environment include the following key actions by 2030.

• 7% per annum reduction in overall GHG emissions from 2021 to 2030 (a 51% reduction over the decade) and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

• Retrofitting of existing homes reaching over 500,000 by 2030 to minimum BER B2 standard, as part of the EU Renovation Wave strategy.

• Homeowners to generate their own electricity and sell it back to the grid under a scheme for micro-generation • 600,000 heat pumps installed (400,000 in existing buildings) • Improve the energy efficiency of public sector buildings by 50% by 2030 – to BER B ratings • One third of commercial (including

For this article, I have outlined below common steps available to upgrade an older residential property to achieve a BER rating of A or I have set out indicative costs of carrying out such a retrofit in the Table 1 overleaf. The main principles of upgrading a home have a few basic rules.

• Step 1: Fabric first approach – You should always aim to insulate the envelope of a home first through roof, wall and floor insulation, windows and doors. This approach will improve airtightness, benefit the comfort levels in a home and reduce heating requirements. The easiest energy saved in a home is that not used.

• Step 2: An air permeability of 5m3/h/ m2@50pa or less is desirable to achieve a high performing home suitable for heat pump installation. Along with this level of airtightness a clear ventilation strategy shall be required and can generally be achieved through a demand control ventilation (DCV), centralised continuous mechanical extract ventilation (CMEV) or mechanical ventilation heat recovery (MVHR) system.

• Step 3: The heating centre of a home should be through a heat pump to avoid using fossil fuels and future proof the home for the greening of the national grid in 2030.

• Step 4: Install a renewable energy source to provide renewable energy and meet Part L building regulation requirements.

All works should be designed by a competent designer (technical assessor) and fitted in accordance with current building regulations.

irishconstructionnews 63 May 2021

SUSTAI NABI LIT Y

Table 1.

Note: Costs outlined in Table 1 provide a guide on upgrading each property type to A-rating with heat pump installation; VAT is included; excludes any grants or energy credits available; not all upgrade measures are suitable or required to an individual property; each house type should be reviewed by a component designer and specified in accordance with building regulations.

DEALING WITH THE EMBODIED CARBON IN CONSTRUCTING BUILDINGS

Energy efficiency in the running of buildings has been well developed over the past 10 years, and most people in the industry understand the ratings and terminology associated with energy certificates such as BER rating, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), etc. The next step for the industry to challenge is to reduce the amount of carbon in building construction and building products, ie, embodied carbon and the life cycle carbon of buildings. This is more important now with our new buildings run efficiently, the larger proportion of carbon is mainly produced in the construction.

IMPORTANCE OF EMBODIED CARBON AS BUILDINGS BECOME MORE EFFICIENT Embodied carbon is beginning to receive more attention from developers, designers, investors, contractors and product manufacturers. The long-term goal is to

64 irishconstructionnews May 2021

construct buildings in materials that have required zero carbon to create, install and recycle. To do this, we need to know how to measure and design buildings with new products and methods of construction that enable us to tackle the embodied carbon in buildings. This, in turn, provides a great opportunity for members of the development process to set targets, design and construct in innovative ways and with

more sustainable products. Ten years ago, we looked at the operational ratings of our buildings. Now we need to benchmark and rate the construction of our buildings.

ABOUT KSN

energy-related services.

To date, KSN Energy has managed the upgrade of numerous domestic and commercial properties so that energy usage is reduced to current upgraded retrofit standards, ensuring optimum insulation levels are achieved, renewable technologies are installed, and occupant comfort levels are improved with healthy environments.

KSN is one of Ireland’s leading construction consultancy practices, providing cost management, sustainability management, project management and a number of expert support services to both public and private clients. In 2010, the directors of KSN founded KSN Energy, which focuses on providing bespoke retrofit and sustainability services for the property sector. Over the past 10 years, KSN Energy has developed its team to provide a one-stop-shop that can assist in the retrofitting and upgrading of properties on a significant scale.

The services provided include energy auditing and building energy ratings (BERs), project management, quality control, energy credit verification, site conformance inspections, product specification development and other

Michael Slevin is a director of KSN, and manages KSN Energy – A bespoke retrofit and sustainability service for the construction industry – that he jointly founded in 2009.

Key statistics • 65-member energy team • 65,000 property upgrades managed • 60,000 quality assurance inspections completed • 45,000 BER certificates issued • 7,000 BER audits completed • 1,200 GWh (300 projects) audited.

If you would like to learn more about the work of KSN Energy, visit www.ksn.ie

SUSTAI NABI LIT Y

A C E I se ts out its vision to address the climate change challenge With the publication of the ‘ACEI Sustainability Vision and Commitment to Climate Action’, the Association of Consulting Engineers of Ireland calls for a wholesale change in approach to how our built environment and construction projects are designed and delivered.

T

he Association of Consulting Engineers of Ireland (ACEI) has set a marker for the built environment sector by placing sustainability at the centre of all that its members do with the publication of the ACEI Sustainability Vision and Commitment to Climate Action.

This document is intended to remind ACEI members and the broader construction industry that the stakes are high, that the status quo cannot continue, and that previous ways of doing things are no longer appropriate.

Speaking about the intent of the sustainability vision, the convenor of the ACEI Sustainability Committee PJ Ryan, Associate Director, Ethos Engineering, explained: “The ACEI Sustainability Vision and Commitment to Climate Action is a reminder that time and effort must be spent in R&D and training to address resilience, long-term sustainability, and societal impacts. We must provide our clients with sustainable solutions that are sufficient for the need, persuading them that alternative innovative solutions will have a significant positive impact for decades into the future. We must also advocate on behalf of our clients with a sustainable vision and ambitions to seek policy, legislation and regulation change that supports sustainable approaches.”

measures taken early, things can be turned around.

“Our member firms have the opportunity to have a significant impact through our clients and the projects we develop on their behalf,” Dancey explains.

Gemma McCarthy, Dublin City Account Lead, Mott McDonald, and another member of the ACEI Sustainability Committee, adds: “Our role across many and varying projects puts us in a unique position to identify challenges facing clients and to advocate for concerted action within all facets of government and society to deal with these challenges.”

GRAVIT Y OF THE PROBLEM

IMPACTS AND IMPLICATIONS

Marcus Dancey, Director, CS Pringle, and a member of the ACEI Sustainability Committee, was particularly central in developing the Commitment to Climate Action element. He explains that the association is looking to show that it understands and appreciates the gravity of the problem but believes that with the right

ACEI SUSTAINABILIT Y VISION

The ACEI Sustainability Vision sets out the case for “A future shaped by socially and environmentally responsible design, where true long-term costs and benefits are considered across entire project lifecycles”.

The vision states: “The ACEI will continue to help shape policy and to influence consulting engineering firms and their clients to pursue well-conceived projects for the benefit of communities and the environment. Such projects will be planned and designed to go beyond the traditional focus on function, cost minimisation and programme, also to address resilience, long-term sustainability, and societal impacts.”

Ultimately, Dancey says that the ACEI believes no project should be embarked upon without a solid knowledge of its likely impact and implications throughout its life and afterwards and those impacts properly costed.

“A project should have no residual costs (financial or otherwise) that are to be

borne by people or the environment that have not been properly assessed and these costs properly weighed in the balance of benefits to society, the environment and the economy,” he explains. “Some projects may fail this test and be rightly eliminated from consideration. Repurposing of existing building and infrastructure and building for future repurposing should be very much on the table.”

CHANGE IS COMING

In the future, design must expand from simply designing, to deliver a constructed entity that meets regulations to designing for the life of the entity.

Dr Sarah Ingle, Secretary-General, ACEI, says that firms must stop using off-the-shelf solutions that worked previously simply because that is all design fees will allow.

“To continue to use this way of working is to enshrine a suboptimal status quo, and such a status quo – even with a nod to sustainability – is no longer an option.

Remuneration for design in construction, and indeed in everything, must cover the proper assessment of the project.

Appropriate research will be required to develop sufficient solutions, as opposed to simply generating improvements.”

The ACEI Sustainability Committee that drafted the vision statement comprises PJ Ryan; Marcus Dancey; Gemma McCarthy; David McHugh, Director, RPS; Gareth McElhinney, Technical Director, RPS; Declan Alcock, Executive Director, Varming Consulting Engineers; and Dr Sarah Ingle.

To learn more about the ACEI Sustainability Vision and Commitment to Climate Action, visit www.acei.ie

irishconstructionnews 65 May 2021

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Laois Hire l a u n c h e s a n e w i n t e r a c t i v e w e b s i t e

L

aois Hire has launched a new interactive, user-friendly website with many exciting features designed to improve user experience for all customers, whether looking to hire or purchase the latest equipment to meet their specific needs. The quick-click responsive website makes it easy for customers to find the products that they may need from Laois Hire’s vast range.

The company has also installed a “Live Chat Facility”, whereby customers can interact directly in real-time with one of Laois Hire’s experienced sales representatives. If you need advice or help with a product or want to inquire about any of their services or divisions, this is an ideal method of communication.

Another feature coming in the next few months will be an e-commerce element, where customers will be able to buy items from Laois Hire’s product range through the website.

Michael Killeen, Managing Director, Laois Hire Group, said: “We have worked hard to showcase our full range of products, agencies and divisions. We’re very proud of the results. We are going to keep developing the website over the coming year and continue to add value to this important customer platform.”

Laois Hire was established almost 30 years ago. It offers plant and tool hire, and sales services from Irish outlets in Portlaoise, Portarlington, Dublin, Athy, Nurney and Galway.

Laois Hire is committed to developing strong, long-term partnerships with customers. As a service-led organisation, it works with its customers to understand their unique circumstances and develop custom service packages to deliver cost savings, operational efficiencies and performance improvements.

Its customers range from tradespersons and consumers to the most successful and well-known organisations working in the Irish and UK construction, facilities management, energy, infrastructure,

retail, community, transport and events sectors.

It has worked on some of the highest-profile projects in Ireland, including the M50, M7 and M8 motorways, N9, Dublin Airport Terminal 2, Monasterevin Bypass and Intel.

It has an integrated logistics division that effectively and efficiently moves stock around the country 24 hours a day.

Check out the new website at www.laoishire.com

Kilsaran re brand s its dry produc ts division to K P R O

K

ilsaran has announced the rebranding of its dry products division to KPRO. The rebrand comes at a time when the company is ramping up production at its plant in Brownstown, Co Kildare, with the addition of a second dry mortar production facility with cutting edge manufacturing technology. The new KPRO brand will feature extensively across the range of dry mortar bag and silo products produced by Kilsaran.

KPRO is the overarching brand that sits across Kilsaran’s seven families of dry mortar products, which include Masonry, Facade, Street, Floor, Crete, Grout And Repair, each with its own distinctive colour. Along with

66 irishconstructionnews May 2021

the new branding and packaging, there will be some new additions to the dry mortar product suite.

The second dry mortar plant will significantly increase production capacity with the addition of several new production lines. The plant utilises the most innovative mixing technologies in the dry mortar industry. The commissioning of this new plant will more than double Kilsaran’s dry mortar production capabilities.

Padraic Hogan, Director, Kilsaran, explained: “Rebranding our dry products division to KPRO is an exciting venture for us. The addition of a second dry mortar plant boosts our overall production capacity and demonstrates our commitment to

providing quality dry mortar bag and silo products. Our suite of dry products together with technical support and specialist expertise in the industry has driven demand that we are now in a position to fulfil effectively and efficiently.”

A member of the “Guaranteed Irish” family of brands, the Kilsaran Group currently employs more than 500 people at numerous locations around the country.

The addition of the new plant in Kildare secures an additional 25 jobs in the new manufacturing facility.

For more information, visit www.kilsaran.ie/ products/kpro-facades-mortars/

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Do r n a n r e c r u itin g e x p e rie n c e d p r o f e s s io n a ls as it expand s pharmaceutical offering

H

eadquartered in Cork, with operations across the UK and mainland Europe, the Dornan Group is currently seeking experienced professionals to join its ambitious team as it eyes up opportunities in the rapidly growing pharmaceutical sector. With long-standing expertise in this sector, Dornan is placing a renewed focus on its European pharmaceutical operations wing, further strengthening its capabilities to provide innovative solutions to existing and future clients.

The company provides integrated end-to-end solutions for mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and fit-out services to the construction industry, including biotechnology, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, data centre, commercial and manufacturing clients, plans to fill the positions Padraig Finn, across multiple locations in Europe.

Operations Director, European Pharmaceutical, Dornan Group.

NEW SENIOR ROLES

The new senior roles will be across a

range of specialities, encompassing engineering, construction, and commissioning. To oversee Dornan’s expansion and future growth plans, Padraig Finn has been appointed as operations director of Dornan’s European pharmaceutical wing and charged with leading Dornan’s ambitious European pharmaceutical operations.

An instrumentation and control systems engineer, Finn joins Dornan from Jacobs, where he held the role of vice president of business development in Europe.

Finn says that having been one of the first Irish construction companies to expand into Europe almost 15 years ago, Dornan is now looking again to grow and expand its pharmaceutical client base in Europe. It recently won another large project in Belgium with a global biopharma company, focusing on neurology and immunology.

“We are looking for ambitious and experienced professionals to join our team and play a critical role in this journey,” he says. “We anticipate an over €5bn investment from the sector within Europe over the next five years in pharmaceutical projects including biotech, fill-finish, API, gene and cell therapy, as well as blood fractionation and vaccines. Our team has the unique skillsets to meet these needs, developed over the last 50-plus years working closely with multinationals that have entered the pharmaceutical sector in Ireland, delivering specialist engineering and construction solutions.”

Dornan is recognised internationally as a leading, fully integrated engineering services contractor.

Visit dornan.ie for more information on Dornan’s current opportunities across Europe.

C a u s e w a y D o n s e e d custom ises biome tric time and attendance solution for construc tion-sec tor

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ichael Nugent Ltd, a leading mechanical and electrical services provider in Northern Ireland, has implemented the Causeway Donseed biometric solution across its major construction projects.

The contractor needed a biometric solution that accurately captures the hours worked on site and also stores the workforce’s data in one cloud database while supporting its health and safety commitments.

Before partnering with Causeway, the contractor had tried several electronic time and attendance platforms but found that they were not robust enough for construction sites and didn’t provide data in real-time via the cloud.

In contrast, the Causeway Donseed solution, which has been designed for the construction industry, will enable the contractor to surface data in real-time from a single location, giving the management team the control they need to reduce labour costs, paperwork and project risks.

Michael Nugent Ltd has chosen to use the Causeway Donseed portable all-in-one biometric tablet, which monitors clocking in and out with both fingerprint and facial recognition verification.

Speaking about the implementation, Brendan Gildernew, Contracts Director, Michael Nugent Ltd, said: “We needed to know more than just the hours worked. We wanted to see data in real-time that helped us understand costs better while giving us the agility to make effective decisions. Our sites will be using both fingerprint recognition and facial recognition technology to verify identity at the point of sign in and out.”

The contractor can now access a whole host of labour management data from one centralised location in the cloud. The data will help

to ensure compliance by managing time and attendance, tracking training, recording PPE conformance and sending automated email alerts when certifications are expiring.

To learn more about Causeway Donseed’s biometric solution or to book a demonstration, visit www.causeway.com/attend enquiries, orscan the QR code

irishconstructionnews 67 May 2021

RE VI E W

S a m s u ng Ga la x y XC ov e r P ro : A resilient phone that won’t le t you down on site The versatile Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro smartphone has many features that would be useful for working on construction sites, including a rugged outer casing, one-click programable keys and a high performing camera.

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he Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro is somewhat different from the general Galaxy range of smartphones.

It is specifically designed for working environments and job sites that include construction, healthcare, and retail settings.

Of course, it is still intended for the typical smartphone user, particularly those who may be a little harsh with their phone. But the Galaxy XCover Pro is presented by Samsung as having a different set of features and priorities than your typical smartphone.

DURABLE AND INTUITIVE

YOU CAN LEAVE YOUR GLOVES ON

For users in the field, glove mode allows for gloves-on use, and the voice to text message feature provides real-time dictation and messaging for simple, convenient communication.

The device is IP68 water and dust resistant, capable of withstanding multiple drops of up to 1.5 metres, even without a case. It is MILSTD 810G-certified for reliable protection against extreme altitude, humidity, and other severe environmental conditions.

The XCover Pro has been available on the Irish market since 2020. Samsung describes the phone as “a smartphone designed and engineered for frontline workers across a variety of industries”, and it certainly is that.

It has several features that set it apart from many others when it comes to working on site.

CAMERA

RUGGED AND ST YLISH

The torch is also operational out of the box by pressing the top key. This is one of two programmable keys that’s function can be changed to create custom one-click actions.

Samsung has removed the physical home button, which has enhanced the elegance and simplicity of the phone design while maintaining its ruggedness.

It is a rugged yet stylish device. Premium features include an immersive display and protection by the Samsung Knox security platform. One nice touch is that its 4,050mAh battery is easily replaceable for those unable to find a power source but have a backup battery to hand. This might seem a moot point, as there are so many power sources to choose from. But if you do get caught out, it is helpful to have the option of switching the battery.

SIZE AND SCREEN

The XCover Pro’s dimensions of 159.9 X 76.7 X 9.94mm (218g) make it sizable but thin.

Weighing in at 218g, it is a light device, but not so light that you won’t know it’s there.

It has a clear, large edge-to-edge 6.3” FHD+ Infinity Display with an enhanced touchscreen able to work in any conditions, including rain or snow.

The XCover Pro’s 25MP and 8MP dual camera and 13MP front camera take clear photos. Live focus lets you blur the background when you need to make your subject stand out, and you can use the LED torch light to brighten low-light scenes.

KEYS

SECURIT Y

The XCover Pro is built with data security in mind and is protected by Samsung’s defence-grade multi-layered Knox platform.

With Samsung Knox, mobile professionals can take advantage of advanced security features like hardware-backed protection, data isolation and encryption and boot- and run-time protection to ensure that businesscritical information is protected against intrusion, malware and other threats. The device also features a fingerprint reader and facial recognition for touch-free accessibility.

For full details on all the features of the Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro, visit www.samsung.com/ie/business/

GALAXY XCOVER PRO SPECIFICATIONS Dimension 159.9 X 76.7 X 9.94mm (218g)

Display 6.3” FHD+, Wet Touch, Glove Mode

AP Exynos 9611 (2GHz Octa-core)

Memory 4GB + 64GB, microSD up to 512GB

Camera Single Front Camera: 13MP, FF, F2.0

Dual Rear 25MP, AF, F1.7 Camera: + 8MP, FF, F2.2

May 2021

OS Android 10.0 SIM Dual SIM (EUR), Single SIM (NA) NFC NFC (EMV L1)

Augmented Google AR Core

Reality

Design Full Screen

Rugged IP68, 1.5m drop (MIL-STD 810G certified)

Sensor Accelerometer, Proximity, Compass, Gyroscope

Pogo Pin Charging only Biometric Fingerprint (side) Security

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Battery 4,050 mAh, user-replaceable, Fast charging (15W)

mPOS mPOS Ready

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K e ep up to date w ith all the late st Iris h C onstruc tion New s , feature s and muc h more on our w ebs ite

c o ns tr u c tio n n e w s .ie Housebuilders tackle climate change Tips to prepare for your next PII renewal 1

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irish construction news Housing focus • Sustainability • Retrofitting • Interviews • Case studies May 2021

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