The Irish Post - Building Britain 2022

Summer 2022 | irishpost.com

Britain SETTING THE PACE How Jacqueline O’Donovan blazed a trail in the construction industry

GOING GREEN

Climate-conscious firms embrace sustainability

DIGITAL DISRUPTORS

Star players offering innovative solutions

EXCEPTIONAL FROM CONCEPT TO COMPLETION

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Leading the way

What’s inside...

THE INDUSTRY’S DOMINANT FORCES ARE GOING GREEN Pages 4-9 TOUGH AT THE TOP – HOW JACQUELINE O’DONOVAN SCALED THE HEIGHTS OF THE SECTOR Pages 13-17 CONSTRUCTION’S DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION – NEW TOOLS FOR OLD TRICKS Pages 21-25 DIGITAL DISRUPTORS: WHO TO WATCH AS A NEW FIELD EMERGES IN THE INDUSTRY Pages 27-31 HOW IRISH FIRMS ARE SUPPORTING THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE Pages 33-35

THE construction industry is well and truly booming post-pandemic.

Irish firms are as busy as ever, working their way through the backlog of projects and contracts that were put on hold or restricted due to the arrival of Covid-19.

Now, with that seemingly behind us, there is much to get excited about regarding the activity across the sector – including the fact that it’s receiving something of a makeover.

Digital technology and the world’s net zero agenda are quite literally transforming the face of the industry.

All the usual high value contracts and coveted projects are still out there but the firms that are winning them are those who have realised their responsibilities to the planet and the benefits of introducing technological solutions where they would traditionally have not.

For years the digitalisation of traditional practices used in building and design projects of all sizes has been developing, albeit at a relatively slow pace.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, however, much of what was predicted for the technological transformation of the sector has begun to be built or implemented at a much faster rate.

And many of the firms creating the digital products and solutions that will make some of the construction sector’s more traditional tools obsolete are Irish.

Read on to find out who is already making their presence known in this relatively new field.

Simultaneously the sector is also being forced to go green in order to comply with new standards and regulations that have been set nationally and globally to recognise the damaging impact the built environment can have on its natural counterpart.

“We are going to a world of carbon counting - like we count calories for food, [construction firms] are counting carbon in the products they use and how and where they use them,” John Hunt, Enterprise Ireland’s Senior UK Market Advisor for the construction sector tells

Building Britain’s 2022 edition.

“There is a real necessity to really understand the carbon implication in what we do, and technology is helping us do that as well – it would be really burdensome to do this traditionally,” he adds.

As ever, Irish firms are proving themselves to be early ESG (environmental, social and governance) regulation adopters.

Many have already begun their journey to net zero and most are employing additional staff to help them get there – so we have rounded up a few of their stories to share with you.

It’s fair to say it’s an exciting and dynamic time in the construction sector right now – one which points to a much more efficient, climateconscious and tech savvy future ahead.

FIONA AUDLEY Contributing Editor

OUT OF OFFICE WITH TLICN’S MARY POTTINGER Pages 38-39

Editor: Fiona Audley Reporting: Fiona Audley Photography: Getty Images Production: Joe Lindley Commercial: Dara Ashby Building Britain 2022 Printed by Warners Midlands Plc Published by The Irish Post, 27a Poland Street, London, W1F 8QW Find us online: irishpost.com Find us /TheIrishPost Follow us @TheIrishPost #buildingbritain Connect with us The Irish Post Join us @theirishpost

CLIMATE-CONSCIOUS: The construction sector is starting to take its environmental responsibilities seriously

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DOMINANT FORCES GO GREEN Longstanding Irish construction firms continue to lead the industry across Britain – and they’re doing their bit to protect the environment too WITH the post-pandemic construction industry booming across Britain, Irish firms have more than their fair share of the contracts on offer.

From the Thames Tideway Tunnel to wind farms, public leisure facilities and lucrative local authority contracts, there is much excitement among the firms currently creating the built environment of the future.

But while they get stuck into the projects at hand many are also turning their attention to the environment and the need to meet the standards now required of them to protect it.

With buildings responsible for 40 per cent of the world’s energy consumption, it’s not surprising that pressure on the construction sector to clean up its environmental, social and governance (ESG) act is intensifying.

Every year, more than four billion tons of cement are produced, which accounts for around eight per cent of global carbon emissions, and the built environment also generates emissions from heating,

cooling, and lighting systems.

Calls for the construction sector to act on its carbon footprint have come from all corners – and as a result legislation, regulation, and reporting requirements around ESG are evolving quickly across the world.

In the UK, all companies currently bidding for government contracts worth £5million or more a year must now commit to achieving net

zero carbon emissions by 2050, while a new EU directive on the energy performance of buildings sets out a proposal which they believe can see member states achieve a zero-emission and fully decarbonised building stock by 2050.

And Irish firms across Britain are already making headway on the climate change targets that have to be met.

FUTURE VISION: An artist’s impression of the new public space due to be created at Victoria Embankment as part of the Thames Tideway project, and, above, the Blackfriars development

Maylim makes new public spaces while sun shines The natural environment has always been a central focus for much of the work done by Maylim Ltd. As a landscape contractor specialising in both hard and soft landscaping, as well as paving, highways and civil engineering, the London-based Irish firm may be closer to nature than most construction

Building Britain 2022

UNIQUE: Exchange Square in London’s Broadgate businesses.

They admit climate change is one of the most significant challenges facing the sector currently and told the Irish Post: “Maylim is well on its journey towards net zero carbon.”

Recently they completed work on Exchange Square - a major new public park for the City of London, which sits at the heart of Broadgate, London’s largest pedestrianised neighbourhood.

The location has been “re-imagined as a bucolic landscape with trees, generously planted borders and green space,” the firm explains.

Suspended above the tracks of Liverpool Street Station the

landscape unfolds across several levels to create a more natural topography for the site.

“The project has been transformational and will provide opportunities for rest and relaxation at the heart of Broadgate,” the firm explains, “Exchange Square is a unique place for people and nature, in the heart of the city.”

The new public park creates four times more green space in the heart of London with its expansive soft landscaping scheme.

The firm has also recently commenced work across three of the Thames Tideway super sewer sites; Victoria Embankment, Albert Embankment Foreshore and

Blackfriars.

Tideway is upgrading London’s sewer system, creating a super sewer to cope with the capital’s growing population, and the 25km tunnel will work to intercept, store and transfer sewage waste away from the River Thames.

Maylim’s remit for the landscape scheme is unique to each of the individual projects and the firm is due to complete all three schemes in 2023.

Wind turbines and staff satisfaction at Murphys Earlier this year J Murphy & Sons revealed that it had been awarded a multi-million-pound

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onshore cable civils works contract for the Sofia and Dogger Bank C offshore wind projects.

The third phase of Dogger Bank Wind Farm is located on Dogger Bank, more than 195 kilometres from the northeast coast of England, with their export cables coming to shore in Teesside, between Redcar and Marske-by-the-Sea. Under the terms of this award, Murphy will work to install the onshore cable ducts which connect the landfall site in Redcar to the HVDC Onshore Converter station.

Their work on the project began in March and will run through until the end of 2024.

GROUNDBREAKING: Work starts on the Sofia and Dogger Bank C offshore wind projects

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categories, with the company recognised as: The UK’s third Best Big Company to work for, London’s second Best Big Company to work for, and Construction and Engineering’s second Best Company to work for.

Clancy committed to delivering smarter, greener infrastructure

GREEN POWER: Dogger Bank Wind Farm Once operational these two offshore wind projects will generate enough green power to supply all of the north east’s electricity needs every year, making it a particularly green achievement for the Irish firm.

Jon Downs, Managing Director of Murphy’s Energy division, said of the project: “We are delighted to be appointed as the High Voltage Cable Civils delivery partner for two of the country’s most important strategic renewable energy projects.

“As Murphy Energy, we are committed to helping our customers accelerate the clean energy transition on our

journey towards net zero and to deliver 40GW by 2030.

“These projects are a key element of this journey, and we are excited to be playing such a pivotal role in their delivery.”

Elsewhere this year the firm, founded by Irishman John Murphy in 1951, was recognised as the UK’s third best big company to work for.

The Best Companies organisation unveiled their league table for regional, sector and national winners, following an employee engagement survey carried out in 2021.

The figures showed that Murphy improved in all

Clancy has successfully been appointed to Pagabo’s national civils and infrastructure framework – positioning the business to further support the delivery of capital investment in green energy, non-renewable energy and water projects across the UK. “We are pleased to have secured a place in all regions that we tendered for across Scotland, London and the south-east of England,” they said as the news was announced.

“Projects procured through the framework will range in value from £500,000 to over £30million over the four lots, with an estimated total spend of £1.6billion over the framework’s four-year duration.

“The appointments enable us to deploy our expertise in civil engineering – building on landmark capital projects in energy such as our work with UK Power Networks in Leicester Square, where we are

ICONIC: Clancy are working on a major substation upgrade in London’s Leicester Square

delivering a major substation upgrade to replace three 123kv, 100-tonne transformers in the heart of the West End.” The framework will also bring new opportunities for the Clancy Group - which was founded by Irishman Michael Clancy as M.J. Clancy & Sons Limited in 1958 and today is one of the largest privatelyowned construction firms operating in the UK, employing a workforce of over 2,300 employees.

“This framework will allow us to showcase our experience in water and wastewater programmes as clients upgrade and build resilience in their networks,” the firm explained.

A key strategic objective for the Pagabo framework is to ensure that the projects procured are working to tackle the climate crisis, through driving net zero targets and building resilience to increased flooding, reflecting the construction industry’s critical role in the UK’s environmental ambitions.

“Having recently signed up to the National Social Value Measurement Framework, an essential aspect of which is around supporting the environment and communities, the new partnership with Pagabo will also allow us to further demonstrate the positive impact our work has on communities across the UK,” the Clancy Group confirms.

Ronan Clancy, executive director at Clancy, added: “Our appointment to the framework offers us a brilliant opportunity to build on our extensive expertise in civils work across the UK to help meet the needs of modern and robust water and energy networks while tackling the climate crisis and improving resilience against its effects.

“We’re looking forward to further expanding our work in Scotland, London and the south-east.

“Our direct-employment model – with our 2,300 highly-trained workers – puts us in an excellent position to leverage local skills and deliver smarter, greener infrastructure as part of this framework.”

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GOING GREEN: Construction firms are working hard to build a better Britain Director at Pagabo, added: “Providing the vehicle for compliant procurement of built environment works means that we have a big responsibility when it comes to helping meet the ambitious net zero targets set out by government.

“We are committed to working with public sector bodies to achieve this through consideration of emerging technologies and project controls, while connecting clients with the right suppliers.

“Whether it is tackling the impacts of the climate emergency through flood alleviation projects or working towards net zero targets through using alternative fuels or development of greener travel infrastructure, this framework offering will make sure that the projects procured through it over the coming years are working towards tackling the climate crisis.”

In order to support their ambitions to deliver smarter, greener infrastructure, Clancy has also recently made two senior appointments to its ESG team.

Mike de Silva recently joined the firm as Head of Sustainability alongside Lorna

Mellings, who joins as Head of Environment.

Ambitious environmental targets set at Laing O’Rourke Sustainability is in focus at Laing O’Rourke.

The international firm, headquartered in Dartford, Kent and founded in 1978 by Mayo-man Ray O’Rourke, has appointed Rossella Nicolin as Head of Sustainability for its Europe Hub. Currently Structures Technical Director, Ms Nicolin will transition into her new position this summer, further strengthening the sustainability team under new Europe Hub MD and CEO-designate, Seamus French.

Her appointment comes as the company seeks to accelerate progress towards the goals it set last year, and which commit the business to continuing to work on three vital and interconnected elements: climate, people and nature.

“While climate and decarbonisation dominate the sustainability debate, Laing O’Rourke’s strategy also focuses on supporting nature

recovery and the need for more people to benefit from the economic activity that the planet’s natural capital enables,” the firm confirms.

The company is gearing up to meet its ambitious sustainability targets, which include achieving operational net zero by 2030 and becoming a net zero company before 2050.

They are also committed to “developing universal wellbeing services that set a new industry standard in caring for people, advancing offsite manufacturing-led construction as the catalyst for safe, inclusive, and long-term careers and achieving equal numbers of men and women among its 5,500 global staff by 2033”.

Elsewhere the global construction powerhouse - which will see founder Ray O’Rourke step down as Group CEO in September, to become a Deputy Chairman of the Group, like brother and business co-founder Des O’Rourke - is busily working away on all manner of contracts.

In Manchester the Laing O’Rourke team constructing the Abraham Moss Library and

Leisure Centre reached three major milestones in May - with the completion of the substructure works, commencement of the steelworks and the installation of the first precast elements.

The progress means that Crumpsall residents will begin to see their new library take shape, with the installation of the 330 tonnes of structural steel which will form the skeleton of the library and leisure centre.

Through collaboration with local steel specialists, Shawton Engineering, the steelworks are due to be completed in the summer, ready for the team to move on to ensuring the building is watertight.

The project is part of an ongoing sport and leisure investment strategy and the new centre will have a sports hall, two squash courts, gym and dance studio, along with a modern library as well as a six-lane swimming pool, learner pool, steam room and sauna.

New Chair and ‘exciting’ contract drive team at Conway Leading infrastructure services company FM Conway has been awarded an ‘exciting’ five-year term contract with the City of London Corporation to provide highway improvements and maintenance works across the City’s unique public spaces.

The contract, valued at an estimated £10million per year, will run from July 1, 2022, with the option of a further five-year extension, and the scope will see the Irish firm deliver high-quality construction and maintenance services encompassing a wide range of assets such as carriageways, footways, bridges, street lighting and drainage systems.

In addition to developing and maintaining public spaces within the square mile, the City of London Corporation is also responsible for over 10,000 acres of urban green spaces – so its new partnership will see FM Conway build upon its success of delivering highprofile projects on London’s historic infrastructure, such as the recent refurbishment of

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London Bridge.

“The contract is founded upon a partnership approach and the parties will work together to reinforce the city’s global reputation as a vibrant and sustainable hub in the heart of London”, the firm confirms.

FM Conway’s net zero strategy has been a firm driver of strategic development at the firm and the company is leading the way in materials innovation to adapt to the challenges of carbon reduction and climate change.

John Holliday, Contract Director at FM Conway, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded this prestigious opportunity to partner with the City of London Corporation and provide our expertise to the Square Mile.

“FM Conway has continually shown its desire to innovate and adapt for the future and we are excited to collaborate with the City for a more sustainable London.”

James Tallon, Managing Director at FM Conway, added: “This a pivotal moment in FM Conway’s future and an incredibly exciting partnership for us.

“The City is steeped in

Building Britain 2022

tradition and yet always reinventing itself, and together we will work closely to build on our own sustainability credentials to further establish the City of London as an iconic part of our capital for the future.

“With our continued drive for smart solutions, our ability to adapt through new technologies and our drive for low carbon alternatives, we will work with the City of London Corporation to deliver an accessible, sustainable and well-maintained public realm that respects the City’s unique heritage.”

The firm has further strengthened its senior leadership team this year with the appointments of Matt Tallon and Liz Garvey to the roles of Sustainability Director and HR Director, respectively.

It was also recently announced that Joanne Conway would take on the role of Chair of the FM Conway Group following the death of her father, former Chairman and owner Michael Conway.

Ms Conway has worked in the business for 21 years across a number of roles, including as a member of the FM Conway board since 2011.

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NEW ROLE: Joanne Conway is now Chair of the FM Conway Group Over the past three years, she has been responsible for the manufacturing arm of the business as the Managing Director of the Aggregates and Asphalt (A&A) division, with her tenure taking FM Conway forward to become the second largest asphalt producer in the South East of England.

The family-run business will now see Joanne follow in her late father’s footsteps and take over his mantle as Chair in order to continue building on the family legacy.

Speaking about her new role, Ms Conway said: “I am honoured and privileged to take on the role of Chair.

“I have had the pleasure of watching our great business evolve and adapt over the past 40 years under my father’s vision and I am proud of the business that we are today.

“We are a family business with family values working towards delivering the best solutions for all by using the safest, innovative and most sustainable methods.

“And most importantly, with a workforce of people that care.”

FM Conway was founded in London in 1961 by Michael Conway’s father Francis (Frank) Michael Conway, who hailed from Co. Tyrone.

EXCITING CONTRACT: FM Conway’s partnership with the City of London Corporation will see it develop and maintain the capital’s unique public spaces

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After 35 years at the helm, O’Donovan Waste Managing Director Jacqueline O’Donovan tells FIONA AUDLEY what it takes to succeed in the construction industry

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JACQUELINE O’DONOVAN was just 19 when she took over the reins as Managing Director at O’Donovan Waste Disposal.

Female-led and family-run, the firm is regularly recognised by the industry for the range of innovative initiatives it champions which prioritise everything from staff wellbeing to health and safety, training and environmental excellence.

Ultimately the firm’s continuing success has come as it has never shied away from the need to meet the many standards and regulations that apply to companies working in the high-risk sectors of construction and waste.

But more than that, under the considered direction of Ms O’Donovan, the company has consistently prioritised meeting or going beyond those standards and demonstrating best practice in doing so.

This alone has set them apart in an industry where compliance has always been an issue – and they have a mantelpiece bulging with awards to prove it.

Among their array of impressive accreditations acknowledging their outstanding, competent, and ethical practices the company is a Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme (FORS) Gold operator – an accolade they have held for over eleven consecutive years.

And over those years the rest of the industry has started to follow suit.

When asked the biggest change she has witnessed across the sector over the past 30-odd years, Ms O’Donovan admits it is that more and more firms are now committed to complying with industry regulations.

“Compliance has been the main change we have seen I am pleased to say,” she told The Irish Post.

“The waste industry is second to agriculture for bad numbers in health and safety,” she adds, “so the fact that the shift in compliance has been a large part of the last three decades is a good thing.”

She explained: “Our industry

WORLD FIRST: Jacqueline O’Donovan was the first female CEO to earn the new master’s in Demolition Management is predominantly run by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and over the last couple of decades we have brought it into the 21st century in terms of compliance – by making sure things are done right.

“That can apply to health and safety, having the right licences, having vehicles in roadworthy conditions, ensuring that employees have places to change their clothes, places to eat, or to go to the toilet.

“Just compliance in general has been the biggest change in the industry that I have seen.”

Compliance has always been the norm within O’Donovan Waste, but for its MD spreading that message among her peers was far more challenging.

“For me the biggest challenge has not been in my own workplace, it’s been convincing industry that [compliance] can be done,” she admits.

“That’s why I do so many public speaking events and

share our figures, because I think that if I show that it can be done by a medium sized enterprise like ours then it will show other people in the industry that it can be done and that it is not a cost, it is a saving.”

Ms O’Donovan suggests that some firms may be cautious of implementing the necessary tools to meet industry

standards due to the financial outlay involved, but is keen to share that, ultimately, meeting the required regulations has always proven cost-effective for her firm in the long run.

“Everything I spend on training and safety costs money to a degree,” she admits, “but the savings are far bigger and far outweigh the costs.

“My insurance, for example, has gone down year on year for about six years now.

“It’s all about training and education, everybody knows there is a culture of training here.

“We have staff that leave us and then come back saying being at other firms just wasn’t like being here – every day here you learn something new. It’s an education.”

And Ms O’Donovan is as happy to educate her industry peers as she is her workforce.

“I think it’s really important that the knowledge is shared, so I will quite happily answer a question for anyone here in the company – if I can answer it, I will answer it,” she says.

“And I think sharing the knowledge is paramount - I don’t understand why industry doesn’t share more, because we are all doing the same thing.”

She admits there are still some among the industry who are reluctant to compare notes with the entrepreneurial second-generation Irishwoman.

“The people who know me know that I will share whatever they want to share and whatever they need to know I

HONOURED: Ms O’Donovan receiving her Lifetime Achievement Award from the Worshipful Company of Carmen

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distinct personality traits to grow the business to one that consistently achieves and sets the pace for those around her.

“I think outside the box, I think that’s what makes me different in terms of business,” she explains.

“I have the ability to be able to weigh something up in front of me immediately and get to the right answer and implement it, speak it or do it, and that, I think, has been inbred in me from my early years of having to hit the ground running.” will share with them.

“I think the people who don’t know me there is sometimes a feeling of rivalry, because they don’t know me,” she explains.

As the only woman heading up a waste management firm in London, Ms O’Donovan is by now used to attracting the odd raised eyebrow among some of her male peers, but claims their issues have never held her back.

“Men [in the industry] either love me or hate me,” she admits.

“My knowledge either surprises them or it intimidates them, or they actually get me, love me, and then use me as much as they can to get whatever knowledge they need out of me.

“It doesn’t affect me to be the only female,” she adds, “I am very

driven and if something has to be done it has got to be done.”

She explains: “I didn’t really realise that there were no other women leading these companies until people started pointing it out to me.

“A woman once asked me, ‘what would you have done different back then if you had known what you know now?’ and I said, ‘I would not have done anything different, if I had done anything different I wouldn’t be where I am today’.

“The fact of not knowing I was the only female in the industry didn’t do me any harm because I just got on with the job.”

Rather than paying attention to how the industry perceived her personally, Ms O’Donovan has used her

Ms O’Donovan’s company ethos of training and education for all comes after she herself left school at the age of 16 and joined her father’s firm full time a year later.

“I had no business training at all,” she admits, “I basically stuck two fingers up to the teachers and ran out of the school gates at 16 saying ‘see you later, I don’t need you’.

“But over the years I have educated myself; I am a firm believer that if I don’t know how to do it how can I expect someone else to know how to do it.

“So I am a qualified transport manager, I’m a qualified health and safety officer and I am qualified to run a hazardous waste transfer station.”

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In October 2020 Ms O’Donovan was one of the first people in the world to earn a master’s degree in Demolition Management.

She was one of the first cohort of students, and the first female CEO, to earn the new qualification - which she studied for two years for at the University of Wolverhampton’s Faculty of Science and Engineering, whilst continuing to work full time.

“All of the training I have done over the years, has helped me educate my team,” Ms O’Donovan claims.

“And because we educate our staff more each and every day, they work in a safer environment, they work more safely with their colleagues and the whole place is a safer place to work.”

As a result, O’Donovan Waste has a team that has stayed loyal for years and across generations.

“Staff retention is what I am proudest about at the firm,” Ms O’Donovan admits.

“I see the staff as our number one asset - not our freehold properties, not our lorries, it’s our staff.

“And the fact that I can say ‘he’s been here 15 years, she’s here 18 years, he’s here 24 years’, that’s confirmation for me that I am doing something

FAMILY-RUN: O’Donovan Waste is led by Ms O’Donovan with the support of her three siblings

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right.”

For the business leader, having high staff retention levels also feeds into the family-run ethos of the company – which she has been running since 1987, when, at the age of 19, and following the death of her father, she took on the Managing Director role.

Her three siblings also slotted into new senior roles at the firm in order to keep the business running.

“Being family-run has been a massive part of our success, we are like the four pillars holding the firm up,” she admits, “one pillar would not be able to hold a beast like this up.

“At the very early stages we all sort of morphed into our roles without realising,” she explains.

“I think they are all very happy – and it’s quite unusual because I am the youngest – but they are all very happy that I have got the purse strings.

“They don’t want that responsibility and I am quite happy to have it, I have got quite broad shoulders.

“Where people panic about things, I am not fazed very often.”

She adds: “So we have all got our roles, we all respect each other’s opinions, and we get on like a house on fire.

“We socialise together, we holiday together, we work together, people find it really unusual actually,” she adds, “they are like ‘oh, my god how can you possibly’.

“But we do, it’s just the norm for us, we have known no different.”

The firm has become a success story that their beloved father Joe would no doubt be immensely proud of, although Ms O’Donovan

admits that’s not her first thought when she thinks of him.

“I think about dad every day,” she says.

“I say goodnight to him every night, but because I was so young when he died, I don’t really think about him regarding the business now.

“My older brother and sister would more likely think like that about dad, but I don’t think ‘what would he think of what I’ve done’.

“They were working with him when they were older, but I don’t have that to relate to,” she explains.

“But what is lovely is when somebody in Cork, or west Cork, or somewhere in Ireland, who has known my dad and seen that I or the company has won some award or something and they send me a card, saying ‘you don’t know me, but I used to know your dad and I wanted to say he would be so proud of you’.

That’s lovely.

“I get about half a dozen a year of them and it’s nice, its lovely that they have gone to the trouble of sending that.

“That to me is worth a million pounds. It’s lovely to know that they still think of him.”

Through her community outreach and support work Ms O’Donovan continues to keep the Irish flag flying high in the capital in honour of her dad and the generation of Irish men and women who blazed a trail in Britain before her.

O’Donovan Waste sponsors the Mayor of London’s annual St Patrick’s Day Festival and supports a range of Irish community organisations and events in and around the city.

For the business leader, it’s important to give something back.

AWARDS AND ACCOLADES Here are just a selection of the many awards won by Jacqueline O’Donovan and her firm during her 35 years as Managing Director O’DONOVAN WASTE DISPOSAL 2021 - Employer Initiative of the Year – Winner - MRW National Recycling Awards 2021 - Design and Build Awards - UK’s Leading Waste Management Firm, London Winner 2020 - ROSPA Health and Safety Awards – Winner 2019 - The Safety and Health Excellence Awards – Highly Commended – Health & Safety Team of the Year 2018 - West London Business Awards Winner – Logistics Business of the Year JACQUELINE O’DONOVAN 2022 - Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Dedication and Leadership to the Transport Sector from The Worshipful Company of Carmen 2021 – Institute of Directors Awards – Family Business Director of the Year 2020 - EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award – National Finalist 2019 - Construction News Award - Highly Commended Outstanding Contribution to Construction 2018 - Women’s Economic Forum - Woman of the Decade in Enterprise and Leadership 2017 Freedom of the City of London – Worshipful Company of Carmen

Jacqueline O’Donovan receiving the David Jamieson Award, which is inspired by the Institute of Couriers Vice President, former Transport minister and former police commissioner, David Jamieson. Ms O’Donovan was honoured for her commitment to her staff and the industry during the Covid-19 pandemic at the 25th annual National Courier Awards which were held in London in November 2021.

2015 - Institute of Directors (IoD) Family Business Director of the Year award

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“My thoughts always go to those signs that were up when mum and dad came over here, ‘no blacks, no Irish, no dogs’, and the discrimination that they must have gone through when they got here,” she admits.

“Also, the work that they had to do to just put food on the table and what they had left afterwards - because they had to leave Ireland as there was nothing to stay at home for, but they had to send money home.

“To think of the sacrifices that they made for the next generation, it is so, so important that it is never forgotten.”

Ms O’Donovan is also ensuring the people who came before them are not forgotten among her own family and is currently undertaking genealogical research to find out more about their forebears.

“I think it is really, really important that the next generation are aware of what people went through – so us as a family, with partners and nieces, nephews, 13 of us, I took them all back to west Cork and we went to as many places we could fit in on a bank holiday weekend, and I showed them all the places related to our parents,” she explained.

“I don’t know why, maybe because I am the youngest of the four, but I am very attached to our Irish roots.

“I have a place in Goleen, my father’s village in west Cork, and you can give me that any day over any holiday,” she adds.

“So, I took them back and showed them where grandad was born.

“We have a genealogist working on the family tree at the moment too, as I am really interested in all of that side of things.

“I think it is really important to protect those memories.”

For the immediate future however, and after the recent industry upheaval caused by Covid-19, Ms O’Donovan is predicting a strong 2022 for her firm and the industry in general, one, hopefully, with no surprises.

“Generally, I love a challenge,” she says, “but I

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WINNERS: O’Donovan Waste won the Employer Initiative of the Year award at the National Recycling Awards for 2021. Pictured here are the firm’s Caroline O’Donovan and Bríanán Ludlow accepting the award think the Covid challenge was enough, we don’t want any more industry-wide challenges right now.

“Instead, we are hoping for a steady year, no negative surprises, in 2022.

“There is positive recovery news out there and we as a firm are back to normal levels of jobs we are serving, plus extra,” she confirms.

“There was a massive backlog on jobs due to Covid, so now people are trying to get everything done.

“We as a company are able to meet the demand and while there is a skills shortage in the industry more generally it hasn’t affected us, as people want to be part of our team.

“London is booming now, there are plenty of sites out

there.”

And Ms O’Donovan is predicting a surge in future work also, due to the legacy of Covid-19 and the many now underused office blocks left in its wake.

“I do think over the years ahead there is going to be a massive refurbishment push with the office blocks where people are not going back to work – I see that coming,” she says.

“I just don’t see those companies returning to the office, in the way they did before,” she adds.

“It’s proved to be more productive having people working at home and I think people at home have felt happier with a work-life balance.

“So, I think no, as much as I understand about the small shops suffering, I just don’t see a mass return to the office happening.

“Even us here, when we started staggering our return to the office, we gave different start times so our employees were not all coming and going at the same time.

“For me it was a major thing, as it’s hard to keep track of staff when they arrive and leave at different times, but now they love the staggered starts.

“So, if it can convert me, it can convert a lot more than me.

“In practice, flexible working has had a massively positive impact on our business,” she adds.

NORDIC ACQUISITION ANNOUNCED It was announced last month that the Nordic construction waste business Sortera has acquired O’Donovan Waste Disposal.

In a move completed on June 1, 2022, Sortera described the deal as “strengthening its international presence”.

“We are very happy to now join forces with O´Donovan,” said Sebastian Wessman, CEO of Sortera which has its headquarters in Sweden.

“They have for a long time carried out impressive work and are today one of the leading and most prominent construction recyclers in London.

“O’Donovan has a strong customer focus and their systematic work with environment and health and safety has resulted in several prestigious awards, as well as a strong reputation among both customers and employees.”

Regarding the development for the business, Ms O’Donovan said: “We are excited to join forces with Sortera and are looking forward to new growth opportunities that, coupled with our skills and experience, will further enhance our business and solidify our place as a leader in the sector.”

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GOLF SEASON IN FULL SWING IT’S busy times at Cara Stationery’s golf division as the season is now in full swing.

Societies, charities, and corporate firms are enjoying their annual day on the fairways, with talk of birdies and eagles taking on a new dimension around the water cooler.

“It’s great to be involved in the excitement of planning a golf day with our clients, especially after the pandemic, when golf was strictly off the agenda”, says Cara Stationery Director Gerry Keany. Cara has been involved in providing clients with golf merchandise for more than ten years now – with most of its construction firm clients either supporting a GAA club or charity golf day or hosting an event of their own event for clients and staff.

Each year a number of Cara’s clients celebrate a milestone anniversary too, be it 20, 30 or 40 years in business.

“To have survived so many ups and downs in the construction industry is a great tribute to the founders and staff of these firms,”

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said Mr Keany.

“Congratulations to O’Halloran and O’Brien who are celebrating 50 years in business in 2022,” he added.

The director recently joined fellow Leitrim men from the construction industry in a threeday charity cycle from Leitrim to Kerry in aid of the Lighthouse Charity.

Almost £200,000 was raised for the charity by the 50 participants.

Generous sponsors for the event were the Gallagher Group, Glencar Construction and Skillko.

FUNDRAISERS: Sean Brennan, David McHugh, Gerry Keany, William Cashin

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TECH TOCK, TECH TOCK Whether it likes it or not, the construction industry is going digital.

The pandemic has expedited that journey and many of the firms who are helping to make that transformation a reality are Irish...

TECHNOLOGY is destined to change the face of the construction industry.

For years the digitalisation of traditional practices used in building and design projects of all sizes has been developing, albeit at a relatively slow pace.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, however, much of what was predicted for the technological transformation of the sector has begun to be built or implemented at a much faster rate.

And many of the firms creating the digital products and solutions that will make some of the construction sector’s more traditional tools obsolete are Irish.

John Hunt, Enterprise Ireland’s Senior UK Market Advisor for the construction sector, is in touch with many of

them.

More than that, he is actively engaged in helping them bring their impressive products and offerings to market internationally – most of which boast a much faster, safer, cost-effective and greener solution to some of the industry’s age-old tasks.

He told FIONA AUDLEY how and why the construction industry is being digitally transformed and how important that technological revolution is.

Is the construction industry really going digital?

Yes, and it’s actually a very exciting and dynamic time in the construction sector now.

A key part of my role with

Enterprise Ireland is around the digitalisation of construction, so taking traditional construction companies and helping them adopt new processes and technology to improve their performance.

If you go back to 2016 there were mandates from UK government that said you had to use a defined technological process, something called a BIM mandate, because it is, productive, less wasteful, saves money and stuff like that, and now there is a whole raft of reasons why companies are being forced to use technology instead of notepads and drawings.

If you fast forward to the pandemic and our increased use of technology in our personal life, as well as our

work life, and how it has broken down some of the cultural resistance to technology, there has been a big societal shift in the acceptance of technology and that has absolutely been replicated in construction.

The UK construction industry didn’t really shut down during the Covid-19 lockdown, it truly is a sector that carried on, it’s a sector that showed really strong resilience and it showed that there is a wealth of technology and multiple variants of ways to apply it.

So, a growing acceptance that technology was here to stay, that it was part of our resilience for future waves of the pandemic, really saw technology take the front seat.

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INDUSTRY VIEW: John Hunt, Enterprise Ireland’s Senior UK Market Advisor for the construction sector

In what areas has technology had the biggest impact on the industry so far?

Two or three areas spring to mind.

Any paper-based processes that construction companies had there was a real role for working out how do you take that paper and turn it into data.

So, we saw companies that

do online inductions, companies that provide digital process automation become the new norm really. We needed to be able to move information around and it needed to be reliable, it needed to be accurate, it needed quality auditing and it needed to all be built-in digitally – rather than relying on email or say paper-based permits to work. We saw massive improvements there.

NEW TOOLS: Technology is changing how the construction industry works

We also saw significant improvements in the programming and scheduling of work on construction sites too.

There were real shortages of people, and you could not afford to have trades attending site and being unproductive.

So, we got a lot more granular in terms of the scheduling, logistics and sequencing on site and that was largely because we needed to reduce

attendance to ensure, safe working practices. So contractors had to plan things much more precisely and accurately.

And attendances, particularly for our clients working in international jurisdictions, they couldn’t get to the sites, so they had to really plan their projects very very accurately.

A lot of companies have come out of that, like Dublinbased Strata Project Solutions, one of Enterprise Ireland’s clients that have built a business on delivering that granular digital technology approach to managing construction sites.

During the lockdown period, another EI client, John Paul Construction [also headquartered in Dublin], successfully delivered a data centre new build project in the Middle East with zero site attendances from their project manager.

In normal times the project manager would be living there or as a minimum travelling regularly, but instead they delivered it from start to handover without him attending site once.

They used technology instead, they had cameras on

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EYE-OPENER: Digital solutions are improving efficiency across the sector people, in their hard hats, and they were walking circuits so he could oversee the inspections, but they also set the technology, the dashboards, the reporting so that he could manage it remotely.

It’s those types of tools and technologies that they are now rolling out across their organisation and getting some mass improvements in productivity and quality.

It’s cost-saving too, and now it means that John Paul Construction’s project managers can run many more projects simultaneously and with a wider geographical spread.

Also, in construction it would not have been unusual a few years ago to have monthly reporting on projects, but what we see now is that has moved to weekly reporting and in some cases daily.

It would have been administratively impossible to do that level of information gathering, collating, and reporting traditionally, but now daily reporting can be set up digitally with live monitoring and dashboards.

The clients of construction

are getting used to that and there is no way they will want to go back to monthly, that’s for sure.

So, the move to more efficient digital construction practices is a silver lining of the pandemic?

It’s a silver lining of the pandemic, absolutely, but it’s not a silver lining that we can sit on.

There are a few other areas that are emerging within the construction arena that really are driving the digital agenda and a new approach too.

The whole drive to net zero and sustainability is another request and requirement that is driving a technology solution in the construction industry.

We are going to a world of carbon counting. Like we count calories for food, we are counting carbon in the products we use and how and where we use them.

There is a real necessity to really understand the carbon implication in what we do, and technology is helping us do that as well, again it would be really burdensome to do this

traditionally.

We are really relying on technology to help us with the level of carbon reporting that the industry needs because 40 per cent of all carbon emissions globally come from the built environment – so therein lies a big responsibility on the construction sector to address that.

There is a lot happening there and it all neatly falls into an acronym called ESG – Environmental, Social and Governance, which is a whole new area of compliance that construction is coming to terms with.

So, there is post-pandemic resilience recovery, the net zero carbon/ESG agenda and within that you also have a key element of governance, introduced through the new Building Safety Act – which only received royal assent at the back end of April, which is the post Grenfell Tower response to ensure something like that never happens again.

There is now a much bigger emphasis on the quality of what the construction industry does and how it does it.

There are clear roles around responsibility for this and that

has brought a whole new layer of information, action and reporting that clients, designers and contractors need to deliver and guidelines to comply with.

So this has been another new element that requires a technology solution – you can’t put six people on a job to check and report on quality, you need a technological solution.

So, you have the quality auditing, the sustainability auditing and the need for more resilience, effective communication, and programming post-pandemic, all those things are building on the original BIM processes to deliver a whole suite of areas for additional value.

With the current context of shortages across materials, energy and labour, technology has come really to the heart of all these issues in construction and they are all pulling to blend and to merge solutions across all these different areas.

What challenges does the industry face in making the digital transition?

Despite the layers of compelling reasons to

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digitalise, there are still quite a few challenges, not least the difficulty of successfully implementing new ways of working across organisations – the people piece.

Nonetheless, I think the needs of the market and the ability of the market to supply those needs are still quite nascent, it is still a bit, I would say, like the wild west.

We are all used to being consumers in really established markets, if you want a car the market is there for you, there’s so much choice, there’s lots of branding, the prices are clear, you know what you’ll get and the colour, the ability to compare and assess against your current and future needs, it’s all there.

The construction technology market is not much more than 10 years old and is evolving rapidly.

Many clients aren’t clear on either what they need, or what’s more important in

terms of priority than something else. Which technologies will most closely deliver their strategic aims?

Then you have suppliers trying to catch up with all these new requirements that their clients have been forced to comply with.

It’s really dynamic with the marketplace still emerging.

What is vital is that our SME firms who have the expertise to provide these technological solutions are connected to the market and that’s where close partnerships with the power and scale and size of the world’s largest tech companies is proving advantageous.

The likes of Microsoft and Intel are engaging with the domain expertise of our SME clients as they address some of the global scale problems that need resolving.

Dublin SME Fexillon and Microsoft are working together to create a platform that deals with emerging ESG issues for

example.

Multinational companies recognise the importance of partnership and an ecosystem to help them deliver the right solution across multiple verticals.

Given the scale of the challenges ahead, we absolutely need some of the big companies to help with the heavy lifting here.

How is Enterprise Ireland helping those SME companies get to market?

Enterprise Ireland is one of the world’s largest investors in technology companies, in terms of volume, we are up there.

In 2021 we were the largest VC [venture capital] investor in the world by deal flow.

We are at the front face of matching needs of international markets with organisations that have innovative solutions – we have been doing that for over 15

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years and have developed a pipeline of companies that we support.

In our technology construction portfolio we have early stage as well as mature companies who now see the construction industry as a home to their technology.

On our construction team in the UK there are four of us and we are working with up to 350 construction clients at the moment.

On the tech side of things there are probably 20-25 active companies with us at any one time.

And now, in this very fluid emerging marketplace for construction technology, one of the best things we can do in what is a little like the wild west, as I mentioned, is to help profile the smaller companies, take them above the noise and confusion in the marketplace and help them with their market fit.

I’m finding technology is a far more collaborative environment than other aspects of the construction sector we support.

I think this is based very much around the emerging needs, defining solutions and bespoke versions for organisations and having the right conversations.

A big thing for us is about informing the market around the technologies that are having the most impact.

Ultimately, we need to work together with international companies to really develop the marketplace so people can see very clearly what they need when they need it and be able to implement it quickly and see what the competition looks like so they can evaluate their needs.

There is definitely a sense in construction technology around that, that this is a sector that needs to work together to define the solutions and the need to deliver for the industry.

Why are Irish companies at the forefront in providing these technological solutions?

PROBLEM SOLVERS: Some of the construction technology firms Enterprise Ireland is currently working with

Across the pharmaceutical

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industry, across the semiconductor micro-processer industry and across the data centre industry there is nowhere in Europe that is constructing and delivering these types of facilities in the way that Irish companies are and that has also driven the the technology eco-system from Ireland.

The solutions that have been driven by those industrial sectors are technologies that will be equally effective in other arenas, helping other complex builds in sectors like healthcare or transport infrastructure. It rarely gets any more complicated than semi-conductor fabrication plants The manufacturing environment for those is beyond belief, it really is space-age stuff.

So the technology is being used to deliver really complex assets in the built environment and those processes of technologies and ways are very, very transferrable.

We have had a number of Irish companies who have built effective solutions at scale – particularly in the data centre area, as that has really gone international from an Ireland ‘test bed’.

To have them deploy mission critical type facilities internationally they had to get really good at what they do and the technology has had to rise to it as well and in many, many cases it has.

I believe we have an incredible success story emerging from Ireland – we have an exceptional established group of founders and leaders driving

TECH SAVVY: Irish firms are driving the digital transformation of the construction sector

construction technology companies that are going on to further leverage their success with new partnerships between the globally renowned technology companies.

Following on from early stage seed capital investment from Enterprise Ireland, many of these companies are going on to raise substantial sums of money and growing from 20 to 50 to 80 employees in a year or two and from hundreds of users to tens of thousands of users and more.

So how long until we see a fully digitalised construction industry?

I would say the industry will probably never be fully digitalised in my working career, but there are sectors of the industry that will digitalise far quicker than others.

Certainly, the industrial sectors, anything around the life sciences or advanced manufacturing, can go and are going really quickly.

Healthcare, education and highways all have massive government support and are making significant strides forward.

You’ll continue to see significant transitions in the next three to five years in those sectors and then you will see the applications

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trickle and then torrent down and through other sectors also.

So yes, I would say the industry will be unrecognisable in the next 10 years.

We are accelerating at a rate day on day, week on week, let alone year on year, that is truly unprecedented.

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DIGITAL DISRUPTORS Irish companies are taking the lead in the technological transformation of the construction industry. Here are the firms to watch for the year ahead…

THE definition of a digital disruptor is ‘any entity that effects the shift of fundamental expectations and behaviours in a culture, market, industry, technology or process that is caused by, or expressed through, digital capabilities, channels or assets’.

From cameras in hard hats, to worksite drones and virtual reality goggles, the construction sector is slowly but surely going digital and many of the disruptors providing the tech tools behind that transformation are Irish.

Here are eight of the firms currently working with Enterprise Ireland who have created innovative technological solutions which are helping to change the face of the construction industry…

Fexillon Headquartered in Dublin, Fexillon provides digital asset management solutions for infrastructure and real estate.

Founded 22 years ago by George Harold and Kieran Beggan, the firm has been pioneering digital transformation in the built environment across

sectors and mission critical infrastructure.

Its ultimate ambition is to become Europe’s largest provider of digital asset management solutions having already completed numerous projects for UK owner-operators in the higher education, healthcare, rail infrastructure, pharma, and high-tech cloud sectors, resulting in a need to establish a base in Britain.

In May 2022, Fexillon announced it is to make additional investments in the UK as part of this European growth strategy.

The rapidly growing technology firm is planning to double its British-based headcount to over 20 employees by 2023 and will establish offices in London and Birmingham.

The company explains that its platform “enables its clients to make proactive, data-led decisions in real time, which

RAPIDLY GROWING: The team at Fexillon allows them to make better, more collaborative decisions around reducing energy consumption and operational emissions through to creating zero energy buildings”.

In addition, Fexillon has also announced that it is collaborating with Microsoft in the assessment of a range of technological solutions for the construction industry including Digital Twins, HoloLens technology and Building Information Modelling (BIM) integration.

The expansion of the relationship will see Fexillon utilise Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to support interactive digital replicas of Microsoft’s built infrastructure, allowing for the real time management of assets and leading to greater operational efficiencies, while leveraging the security benefits of the Microsoft Cloud.

“Over 22 years we have built a strong reputation for quality and innovation,” said Fexillon co-CEO and co-founder Kieran Beggan.

“Our solutions offer peace of mind for blue-chip firms in the public and private sector, providing a more streamlined approach to buildings and property management.

“These markets will accelerate at pace as the pandemic eases and remote management capability expands under Industry 4.0 and includes process automation, IOT and robotics.”

He added: “Our expansion into the UK will ensure Fexillon is well positioned to support mission critical building owners with regional and global footprints and can provide a secure environment for managing building information from

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planning and design stage, construction and handover to operations and maintenance for the building owner and operator.”

George Harold, Fexillon co-CEO and co-founder, added: “Fexillon is now poised to become a significant player in Europe with our new UK base and the expansion of our international team.

“Launching in the UK marks a strategic pivot in our future direction and ongoing development of the company, and we believe that the potential to unlock further opportunities in the UK and European markets are huge.”

Fexillon currently supports several leading companies across Ireland, the UK and Europe such as Balfour Beatty, Bank of Ireland, the University of Strathclyde, Manchester Metropolitan University, and other multi-national technology companies.

For further information visit www.fexillon.com Strata Project Solutions Established in Dublin in 2016, Strata are construction planning, visualisation, and delay analysis specialists.

Founded by Enda Grimes with just one employee, today the firm boasts a team of 35 skilled engineers, construction professionals and IT specialists, who are committed to bringing progressive planning techniques,

visualisations and delay analysis services to their clients.

With offices in Dublin, London and São Paulo in Brazil, Strata’s vision is to “be the leading construction planning and visualisation experts partnering with clients to build better, smarter projects with less risk”.

Their three core services are planning and project controls, visualisation and modelling and construction delay claim services and analysis.

“Delivery of a successful construction project is defined by the overall cost performance and ability to meet the project timelines,” they explain.

“The project plan determines the timeline, resources needed, and reality of the delivery of the project – and how efficiently a project is planned and the schedule adhered to, has a direct correlation to the cost of the build.

“There is a growing awareness of the importance of construction planning and project controls both because of its benefits to commercial success but also because of the impact of when it fails on the project.”

They add: “Every member of the Strata team is passionate about planning and project controls and are experienced in the use of all leading construction planning software.

Strata founder and director Enda Grimes “[We] provide services from project concept to postcompletion analysis.

“For live construction jobs, dependent on our client needs, they have the ability to work remotely and also place a planning expert on a client’s live construction site.”

Their visualisation and modelling service involves simplifying complex construction projects by coordinating information and visually presenting it, using a combination of innovative 2D, 3D and 4D models.

“This service complements our planning services by enabling communication of the construction programme in a manner that is clear, user friendly and easily transferrable to all project stakeholders,” they confirm.

Regarding their delay claim services, they add: “[We] have the ability to analyse an original project schedule and compare it to the as-built version to understand the root cause of the delay.

Strata’s visualisation and modelling service uses a combination of innovative 2D, 3D and 4D models

“Proving that a delay extended the overall project duration, proving that the delay is compensable, and identifying which party bears the sole responsibility for the delay is a complex process, and requires a specialist skill set.”

A recent project Strata were involved in was the European Spallation Source (ESS) facility in Sweden.

“This project is one of Europe’s largest active infrastructure projects - worth £2billion - in recent years,” they explain.

“When completed, ESS will be a state-of-the-art Scientific research facility providing the world’s most powerful neuron source.”

The firm’s responsibility involved planning management on behalf of the main contractor, coordination of interface access divisions for the five divisions and delivery of planning management training and workshops to client teams.

In Ireland they were involved in Project Fitzwilliam - the important redevelopment of the Irish Electricity Supply Board’s (ESB) headquarters and rejuvenation of adjoining protected structures along Dublin city’s Georgian mile.

The project, which started in 2017, completed earlier this year.

“It involved the retention and refurbishment of a number of protected Georgian structures, and the construction of two new seven storey office blocks,” they explain.

“This mixed-use development includes offices, retail, meeting space and a new pedestrian route.”

Strata partnered with PJ Hegarty’s, one of Ireland’s most progressive building and civil engineering companies, to provide strategic construction planning services on the project.

“Our responsibility involved preparing logistical and phasing drawings, procurement schedules and lookaheads, coordination of sub-contractor inputs, monitoring overall

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construction progress and preparing reports,” they added.

Strata’s current projects in the UK include residential, pharma, data centres and civil sectors.

Their clients include main contractors, developers, design firms, project management organisations, blue chip companies and government bodies – with 50 per cent of their clients based internationally in the Nordics, UK, Belgium, France and Middle East.

For further information visit www.strata.ie

Evercam Evercam is a construction camera specialist which increases its clients’ productivity by improving project visibility and team communications.

“To do this, we build tools that capture the big picture, surface the relevant details and encourage collaboration,” they explain.

“In short, we’re here to be useful.”

Headquartered in Dublin, the firm has offices in Poland, Pakistan, Australia, UK, the USA and Singapore.

Providing “the tools you need for incidents investigations, marketing material to showcase your work, and communications”, the firm explains that its solutions are “used on some of the largest (and smallest!) construction projects across the globe”.

Recently they were on hand to assist on a high value project in Ireland, at Moneypoint Power Station in Co. Clare.

“Following a competitive tender process, Siemens Energy Limited was awarded the contract for the engineering, procurement and construction of the new €50m Synchronous Compensator in Moneypoint Power Station,” they explain.

“The synchronous condenser will incorporate the flywheel to provide high inertia to sustain grid frequency,

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reactive power for voltage control and short circuit capacity to strengthen the power grid as more renewables will be integrated to the power system.

“Siemens Energy will deliver this project as a turnkey in 2022 and will provide after sales maintenance services for ten years with remote diagnostics.

“This will be the first synchronous condenser with the world’s largest flywheel to be installed in the Irish power grid to compensate for the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources and to provide grid stability.”

They add: “Due to the intermittency of wind energy, in particular, grid stabilisation technologies have an increasingly important role in a successful energy transition.

“The Moneypoint Synchronous Compensator with flywheel comes in as a cost effective and zero carbon solution to strengthening the stability and resilience of the Irish grid.

“Siemens Energy provided an optimum technical and competitive solution for Moneypoint in its continuing key role in Ireland’s electricity system. “[Our] solar-powered construction cameras have been installed on this site to monitor the progress of the projects and to capture time-lapse video footage for marketing purposes.”

For further information visit www.evercam.uk FlowForma FlowForma is the leading provider of enterprise-class, no-code business process management and automation tools that empower

businesspeople to quickly digitise a wide range of activities within their firms.

“We enable business users in construction, engineering, healthcare and financial services to digitise, transform and automate complex business processes without software code,” they explain.

Earlier this year the firm was recognised by MyTechMag as one of the Top 10 Construction Tech Solution Providers.

FlowForma’s 100 per cent no code process automation tool was selected for industry recognition due to its “ability to empower citizen developers to digitise processes 5 times faster than alternative tools, gain rapid adoption, and deliver proven ROI within 12 weeks”.

“The demand for Digital Process Automation solutions among construction companies continues to soar, as organisations look to new technologies to operate as efficiently as possible, keep overheads low and stay ultra-competitive,” FlowForma state.

“Process automation is now a strategic imperative, with construction firms racing to digitise at scale,” they add.

“Agile automation is the new norm, and businesspeople are the superpower to ensure rapid and agile automation.”

Headquartered in Dublin, FlowForma is widely held to be leading the way in its tech field, serving construction firms and multi-million infrastructure projects across the globe.

With a 3-in-1 solution of forms, workflow, and document generation, their highly intuitive no code tool is

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allowing organisations across the construction sector to get their back office in shape, reduce administration, and use on-site resources more effectively.

“Our customers are focused on digitising for outcomes, most automate over 50 processes per year and they’re saving at least 700 hours on repetitive tasks alone,” Olivia Bushe, Chief Executive Officer at FlowForma, confirmed.

“Remote sites, joint ventures and multiple suppliers are a breeding ground for fractured processes that make it hard to be efficient and compliant with regulatory requirements,” she added.

FlowForma is also listed as a corporate partner with the Construction Industry Federation of Ireland (CIF).

That strategic partnership allows CIF members, the largest construction membership in Ireland, easy access to the FlowForma Process Automation tool to receive up to date information on all things digital process automation and digital transformation for their future growth and development.

The firm has also created a Construction Accelerator which offers users a variety of ready-to-use, fully editable, process templates for digitising common construction processes such as Field Change Request, Concrete Pre-Pour Check Sheet, Labour Requisition, Materials Requisition, Hot Work Permit and Safety Observation.

For further information visit www.flowforma.com

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I3PT/OBI Dublin-based I3PT was founded by CEO Eoin Leonard to “make a positive impact on the built environment”.

The Irishman explains: “Our mission is to provide improvements in ESG, quality and asset safety for our clients, through rigorous, independent oversight and knowledge sharing.

“We will do this by teaming the very best technical teams with innovative technology and process improvements.”

He adds: “I’m proud to say that we work hard to deliver on that promise every day.”

The firm provides several key services to the construction industry including quality assurance, technical advisory, design reviews, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) consultancy.

Their software Obi enables their construction clients to manage quality, compliance and sustainability deliverables throughout the entire asset life cycle on a single platform.

It offers “a seamless link between the office and the worksite” according to the firm.

Regarding the need for their product, they explain: “Our industry is changing, as legislation and other key drivers demand that we build and manage better, safer, more sustainable assets.

“At Obi, we understand that software is only part of the solution. People need to be at the heart of the change we all want to see.”

They add: “Obi is designed by industry professionals, for industry professionals.

“We know the pain that comes with clunky, disjointed software and we are doing our best to make that a thing of the past.

“New legislation increasingly requires that we can demonstrate integrity, due diligence, transparency and ethics in the ownership and delivery of assets.

“We focus on developing tools which drive accountability through automated workflows, keep our clients informed with live,

relevant data, make it easier to meet ever increasing standards through investments in user interface and user experience and provide a clear history of decision making throughout the entire asset life-cycle.”

For further information visit www.i3pt.ie Murphy Geospatial Founded by Irishman Peter Murphy in 1983, Murphy Geospatial (formerly Murphy Surveys) captures, collates, verifies and governs geospatial data for clients within the architecture, engineering and construction industries.

Geospatial data is defined as time-based data, related to a specific location on the earth’s surface, and the firm is dedicated to providing “geospatial certainty” their clients can trust “in an increasingly complex and ever-changing world”.

“We provide critical surveys and data our clients need to work with confidence and maximise efficiencies across the project lifecycle,” they explain.

“Our GeoCERT® platform is where our people, process and technology integrate to provide geospatial certainty.”

Their innovative solution means their “highly skilled and experienced team engage with our clients to provide exceptional levels of customer service”, they explain, “with extensive resources and highly developed workflows, which have been refined through the delivery of over 25,000

projects over the last 40 years”.

“This enables us to confidently and consistently deliver a diverse range of projects of any complexity and scale.”

They add: “By leveraging the latest technology and our research and development team to develop industry leading geospatial data capture and outputs we are revolutionising how our clients engage and utilise spatial data to provide additional value through the project or asset lifecycle.”

One of the key services Murphy Geospatial provides is structural and environmental monitoring.

“This process allows us to understand the dynamic nature of our natural and built environment by harnessing the power of communications networks and sensor technology,” they explain.

“Not only do we imagine a world where our buildings and critical infrastructure feed real-time performance data into decision support tools – but we deliver it too.”

They add: “The data we provide helps our clients to better understand the impact of construction, weather, traffic and time on the world around us.

“By measuring and monitoring these factors, we can provide data which informs more accurate decision making.”

In March 2022 the firm, which remains a family-run business following the death of founder Peter Murphy in 1995,

expanded its operations by opening a new office in Birmingham – designed to close the gap between their London and Manchester bases.

“With Birmingham’s economy predicted to recover quickly from the pandemic with an annual GVA growth of 7.1 per cent in 2021, the area has plenty of opportunities to offer as we move through 2022,” the firm states.

“As a company, we recognise the world-leading infrastructure and development projects emerging from Birmingham and acknowledge the potential for technology advancement.

“Since we’ve already secured considerable contracts throughout the Birmingham region, opening an office in the city seems like a natural next step for growth.”

They add: “We’ve worked on several transformative projects in recent years and plan to continue this pattern with Tim Faulkner at the helm of our Midlands ship.

“As well as our topographical, structural monitoring and subsurface survey work at Curzon Street Station, we have contributed to multiple sublots for HS2 and the St Joseph’s residential development, Glasswater Locks.”

Ultimately, the firm’s vision is “to be the first-choice partner for geospatial certainty”.

“Our core values comprise of integrity, respect, innovation and community,” they add.

For further information visit www.murphygs.com

CORE VALUES: Murphy Geospatial prides itself on providing ‘geospatial certainty’ their clients can trust

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CLARITY ON COSTS: (l-r) LiveCosts COO and Product Owner Niall Brennan, CEO Ciaran Brennan and CTO Diarmuid Quinn LiveCosts LiveCosts was founded in Dublin in 2018.

Brothers Niall and Ciaran Brennan created the firm after many years working on construction projects around the world.

“We simply got sick and tired of running projects in the dark - not knowing real time costs,” Ciaran explained.

“We searched high and low for software and systems that would suit our business, unfortunately we found poor products that also looked like they had come from tech companies looking to get into construction.

“After the exit of our contracting business we investigated the global construction tech market and realised how technically underserved it really was, that screamed opportunity to us as we deeply know and understand this customer, meaning we could see the product to market fit long before there was even a line of code.”

Their solution is a “simple cloud-based construction project tool that automatically collects construction costs such as labour, material, subcontractors, etc. which provides live cost data on those projects without the manual effort”, according to the tech entrepreneur.

Regarding the problem their product solves, he explains: “The go to system to manage project costs for most SME

construction companies is still Excel spreadsheets.

“Even though publications like Forbes have reported that 88 per cent of spreadsheets contain errors, they are still the go-to solution for most SME construction companies to control cost.

“I’m not sure about you but when it comes to tracking construction costs in today’s market I’d like a system that gives me 100 per cent accuracy on my project costs.

“We provide real time project data, which includes insights to projects and costs that will never be found in either the companies’ accounting software or their project spreadsheets.”

Headquartered in Blanchardstown, Dublin, LiveCosts is a remote first company – meaning they employ from anywhere in the world.

Regarding their successes to date, Ciaran admits: “We are backed by some of the leading investors both here in Ireland and globally.

“Scaling a business globally is not easy, our biggest success has been surrounding ourselves with highly experienced people that have seen this before and can help us navigate through the challenges of breaking into new markets.”

And how hard was it to bring their tech solution to the construction sector?

“This hasn’t been a challenge for us, we provide clarity around cost in a period

where there is so much uncertainty around costs,” he says.

“Smart construction operators now know that the systems that worked yesterday are no longer suitable for today.”

For further information visit www.livecosts.com GoContractor The contractor management

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software platform Go Contractor has been designed to help construction general contractors move their worker onboarding and subcontractor safety management online.

Founded in Dublin, the firm now has offices in the UK, US and Canada.

The product allows managers to collect and store all the worker information they need – from qualifications and credentials to compliance documentation – before the staff member even steps foot on the worksite.

It can also be used for staff screening, onboarding, training and orientations.

“With GoContractor, you can get your time back and manage your workers and subcontractors more efficiently through online registration, training, approvals and compliance,” the firm explains.

Currently their clients include Lendlease, Skanska, Glencore, Redcom and Turner.

For further information visit www.gocontractor.com

O’CONNELL DEMOLITION LTD OFFERS A SAFE, RELIABLE AND COMPREHENSIVE DEMOLITION SERVICE THROUGHOUT LONDON AND THE SOUTH EAST. Specialising in demolition, asbestos removal, soft stripping and site clearance works, our aim is to become our client’s preferred demolition contractor. office@oconnellcontracting.com 020 3150 5029 2 Mountsides, Stanmore, Middlesex, HA7 2DT

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WAR EFFORT Construction industry goes above and beyond to support the people of Ukraine THE ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to impact the construction industry across Britain, Europe and the rest of the world.

The conflict and the related sanctions on Russia for their illegal invasion of their neighbouring country, which began in February and continues as this publication goes to print, are affecting the price and supply of materials and equipment critical for projects across the sector.

In the UK, the industry typically operates on small profit margins but requires significant resources for works to be progressed.

Accordingly, any impact on supply chains quickly gives rise to financial pressures.

The pressures exerted by the

war in Ukraine further exacerbate an already turbulent market which, in only a matter of years, has been harshly hit by Brexit, Covid-19, inflation and rising energy and fuel costs.

Russia is traditionally a global supplier of steel, iron, nickel, chemical products, and wood, while key exports from Ukraine include steel, iron and nickel as well as machinery and transport equipment.

The war has disrupted these supply chains and further disruption is expected, according to Britain’s Construction Leadership Council (CLC).

The body is “monitoring the situation carefully and, working with government, will determine appropriate

responses as developments occur”, they have confirmed in a statement.

They have also called for a “collaborative response” to these new industry challenges.

“The CLC’s view is that a collaborative response to these challenges is needed to avoid the risk of damage to industry capacity and capability.

“This is necessary because the current level of cost uncertainty exceeds the capacity for the supply chain to carry all of the risk.”

They added: “If there ever was a time when a chain needed to be stronger than its weakest link, it is when most of the cost risk is being held by lower tier sub-contractors and suppliers. This time is now.”

Despite the very real

concerns about the impact of the conflict on the industry, companies across the construction sector have been doing their bit to support the people of Ukraine in their time of need.

MURPHY’S OFFER JOBS FOR UP TO 175 REFUGEES J Murphy & Sons Limited has announced that it is working with the British Home Office to offer up to 175 Ukrainian refugees employment opportunities across a variety of roles within the Londonbased Irish firm.

The roles include onsite, operative and functional roles in areas such as finance, along with skilled opportunities in Murphy’s engineering,

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commercial and operations activities.

“Murphy’s goal is that the wide range of jobs will support a broad cross-section of the Ukrainian community that is relocating to the UK,” the company confirmed.

In addition, Murphy will offer practical assistance to Ukrainians joining the business — such as helping with language barriers, housing searches, cultural integration support and informal mentoring.

As part of this, Murphy will partner new recruits with current Murphy employees who have Ukraine or other Eastern European locations as their country of origin as part of a ‘buddy system’.

Following the announcement of the support scheme, Murphy CEO John Murphy, said: “As a family-owned business, we strive to go above and beyond when it comes to supporting our people and communities.

“This is an opportunity to offer meaningful employment to those Ukrainians looking for work in the UK, as well as helping them and their families adapt to life here.

“We are looking forward to welcoming new colleagues from Ukraine to the Murphy family.”

His words were echoed by Dawn Moore, Group People and Communications Director at Murphy.

She said: “We are a growing business with a number of opportunities, and we want to do whatever we can to support those impacted by the current

situation in Ukraine.

“There are many different levels of jobs available within our business along with a wider package of support.

“It’s also no surprise that many of our Ukrainian, Polish and other Eastern European Murphy people have volunteered to help these prospective new joiners, which is a fantastic show of support.”

Inas Almnasra, who will be acting as Murphy Ukrainian Volunteer Mentor, added: “I was born in Ukraine and lived there until I was five, and have worked with Murphy for the past three years, so I am really looking forward to helping our Ukrainian colleagues to find their feet and get settled in the UK. “The war in Ukraine is causing untold heartache for families; I’m incredibly proud that Murphy as a business is committed to helping people who are in such desperate need.”

KINGSPAN INVEST €200M IN NEW TECHNOLOGY CAMPUS Insulation and building materials manufacturer Kingspan has announced it will invest €200m in a new Building Technology Campus in Ukraine.

The new site will be constructed over next five years and it is expected that more than 600 jobs will be created there, where the Cavan-headquartered firm plans to manufacture advanced

insulation and district heating products.

In April, Kingspan announced its exit from the Russian market – which accounted for less than one per cent of its global operations - had been completed.

Its products are no longer available in Russia.

Kingspan CEO Gene Murtagh said their investment in Ukraine sits at the crossroads of three crises - the climate crisis, the energy security crisis, and the crisis caused by the Russian war against Ukraine.

“The new Building Technology Campus we are planning will make positive contributions on all three fronts, supporting Ukraine as it rebuilds its economy, meeting demand across central and Eastern Europe for energy efficient buildings, and helping Europe to reduce reliance on oil and gas imports,” he said.

“The ambition is for the development process to begin immediately - subject to appropriate security conditions - with the facility expected to be fully complete within five years. Kingspan has appointed a project team to identify a suitable site, likely to be in the west of the country, and is liaising with the Ukrainian Government to this end,” the CEO added.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the country’s goal is not solely renewal and rebuilding of the destruction caused by Russian aggression but also the

creation of a completely new, modern and innovative economy leveraging leading urban development expertise and green technologies.

“For this reason, based on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s vision, we created the Recovery Plan for Ukraine, and Kingspan’s project meets both the spirit and the goal of our plan,” the Minister said.

“We invite the international business community to follow this example by withdrawing completely from Russia and relocating their businesses in Ukraine. This will benefit both: a company’s standing and its long-term strategy,” he added.

DONATIONS MADE VIA VGC DELIVERED TO THOSE IN NEED The VGC Group has been fundraising to provide urgent supplies to those most affected by the war in Ukraine.

Earlier this year, the Irish organisation transported vital goods to three charities thanks to the donations of staff and suppliers alike.

“We received generous donations from staff in our head office in Ruislip as well as Solihull,” they confirmed.

“Alongside this, we received substantial donations from suppliers; Keyline, RISBY Air Conditioning, Storm Technologies, Safeaid, and Scott Parnell. Donations ranged from PPE, toiletries, clothing, blankets, footwear, nonperishables, and rucksacks.”

On April 12, VGC Logistics Driver, Eamonn Duff, then transported the goods to the relevant charities for delivery to Ukraine.

“The donations have been sent to the most affected areas in Kyiv and the western parts of the country, specifically the Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv regions, where thousands of refugees have been relocated in order to escape the most seriously impacted areas in Ukraine,” they added.

RAISING THOUSANDS OF POUNDS FOR THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE

INVESTMENT: Kingspan will build a new Building Technology Campus in Ukraine

The Lockdown Room bar and restaurant located at

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Ballymore’s London City Island has raised more than £22,000 to help the people of Ukraine, with a fundraising appeal and event.

The team at the venue hosted a fundraising initiative and donated 50 per cent of all revenue from the day.

Residents from London City Island, a unique riverside development built by the Irish firm which is set against stunning views of Canary Wharf, supported the event by donating prizes for an engaging charity auction.

It saw visitors to the venue bid for 15 appealing lots, including stays at the Soho House hotel in London, a 12-month membership at yoga and meditation studio HUM Yoga, a Christian Louboutin handbag and a spa retreat.

In its commitment to charitable causes, Ballymore, which is headed up by founder, Roscommon native Sean Mulryan, matched The

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Lockdown Room’s £10,000 fundraising target.

“The collective efforts of all involved have raised a total of £22,320, to be donated to the British Red Cross Ukraine Crisis Appeal, with the team seeking further donations via a newly established Just Giving page,” Ballymore confirmed.

Dan Bull, the founder of The Lockdown Room, said: “We are absolutely thrilled with the outcome of these fundraising efforts, and want to extend a huge thank you to Ballymore for generously offering to match our target.

“London City Island is a great community filled with inspiring people who genuinely want to help. I am thrilled to have found a way to harness their generosity and to have made a difference.

“The support of our neighbours and of Ballymore has been overwhelming, and my team and I want to acknowledge the kindness of all

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FUNDRAISING: Supporters attending the event at The Lockdown Room bar at Ballymore’s London City Island involved.”

John Mulryan, Group Managing Director of Ballymore, added: “This is a heart-warming example of a community pulling together for a great cause.

“We are proud to have been involved with the initiative and will continue to work with Dan and our local community on the Island to lend our support to those in need.”

The Lockdown Room was

born out of the pandemic in March 2020 as a sister venue to London City Island’s Espresso Room.

The latter also contributed to the fundraising, donating 100 per cent of its merchandise sale profits on the day.

Mr Bull is continuing to support the fundraising campaign for Ukraine and has volunteered his home as part of the UK government’s ‘Homes for Ukraine’ appeal.

Little Amal, a giant puppet depicting a Syrian refugee girl, arrives at Ukraine’s Embassy in London, to show support for Ukraine, following Russia’s invasion

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Housing sector hit hard ‘Worrying’ time as residential construction performs at worst rate since pandemic began WHILE the boom in post-Covid commercial construction projects continues, the residential side of the sector is performing at its lowest rate since the pandemic began, according to new data.

Despite an upturn across the industry more generally since restrictions were lifted, local building firms are continuing to suffer at the hands of price inflation, falling consumer optimism and skills shortages, say the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) in response to recent Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) construction data.

PMI surveys are closely watched by central banks, financial markets and business decision makers for their ability to provide up-to-date, accurate monthly indicators of economic trends.

Tim Moore, Economics Director at

ON THE DECLINE: House building has slowed since the pandemic S&P Global Market Intelligence, which, along with the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS), compiles the construction data survey, said their May 2022 figures signalled a “solid overall rise in UK construction output as resilience across the commercial and civil engineering segments

helped to offset weakness in house building” but added that “residential construction activity was close to stagnation in May”, which represented its “worst performance for two years amid signs of softer demand and a headwind from low consumer confidence”.

He explained: “New order volumes expanded at the slowest pace since the end of

2021, which added to signs that heightened economic uncertainty has started to impact client spending.

“Concerns about the business outlook were signalled by a fall in construction sector growth projections to the lowest for more than one-and-a-half years in May. “Around 19% of construction firms predict an outright decline in business activity during the year ahead, up from just five per cent at the start of 2022.”

However, on a more positive note, he confirms that supplier delays subsided in May, with the latest downturn in performance the least marked since February 2020.

“Meanwhile, rapid price pressures persisted due to rising energy, fuel and staff costs, but the overall rate of inflation eased to a threemonth low in May,” he said.

Duncan Brock, Group Director at the CIPS, added:

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“The housing sector has showed further signs of fragility with the worst performance since May 2020 and moving closer to the danger zone of negative territory.

“Affordability concerns will be weighing on the mind of

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potential house buyers grappling with escalating costs for everyday items, resulting in a postponement of big purchases until the UK economy shows more resilience,” he explained.

“The lack of positive sentiment was also reflected in

construction companies’ confidence over the next 12 months, with optimism dropping to the weakest since August 2020.”

Responding to the data, FMB Chief Executive Brian Berry said: “With output and optimism hitting lows we last

PMI DATA - KEY FINDINGS PMI data for May 2022 signalled another growth slowdown in the construction sector amid a considerable loss of momentum for the residential category.

The latest rise in housing activity was the weakest since the recovery began two years ago.

Survey respondents suggested the subdued consumer confidence and worries about the economic outlook had constrained demand.

Higher borrowing costs and intense inflationary pressures were also cited as factors likely to hold back growth over the next 12 months.

The latest survey data indicated that business activity expectations at construction companies were the least upbeat since August 2020.

The S&P Global/CIPS UK Construction PMI – which measures month-on-month changes in total industry activity – registered 56.4 in May, down from 58.2 in April and the lowest reading for four months.

Weaker trends in the house building subsector were the main brake on growth, with this index falling to 50.7 from 53.8 in April.

The latest reading signalled the worst performance for residential work since May 2020.

Commercial building was the fastest-growing segment in May (index at 59.8), with the speed of expansion easing only slightly since April.

Construction companies noted strong demand for commercial work, despite a degree of hesitancy due to the uncertain economic outlook.

Meanwhile, civil engineering activity increased for the fifth month running and at a robust pace (index at 55.5) amid a sustained boost from major infrastructure projects.

Total new orders expanded again in May,

which marked two years of continuous sales growth in the construction sector.

That said, the latest increase in new work was the slowest since December 2021.

Survey respondents widely cited recruitment difficulties due to shortages of suitably skilled candidates.

May data highlighted strong demand for construction products and materials, as signalled by a steep and accelerated rise in total purchasing volumes.

Efforts to replenish stocks and pre-purchase ahead of price rises also contributed to higher purchasing activity in May, according to survey respondents.

There were positive signals for supplier performance in May, as delays were the least widespread since February 2020.

Some firms noted an improvement in the availability of construction items, despite ongoing challenges including logistics bottlenecks, Brexit trade frictions and supplier staff shortages.

Rapid cost inflation persisted in May, with the vast majority of survey respondents (73%) reporting a rise in purchasing prices.

This was linked to rising fuel, energy and raw material costs. That said, the overall rate of inflation eased to a three-month low.

The number of construction firms predicting an increase in business activity during the year ahead (46%) continued to exceed those expecting a decline (19%) by some margin.

However, the resulting index measuring overall growth expectations across the construction sector signalled the weakest degree of optimism since August 2020.

Construction companies suggested that lower consumer confidence, rising borrowing costs and heightened economic uncertainty were all likely to act as headwinds to client demand in the next 12 months.

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saw at the start of the pandemic, it’s a worrying time for small building firms.

“Hardworking local builders have been beset by challenges and at a time when they rightly hoped for recovery, things look set to get worse, with inflation on the rise alongside a likely decline in consumer demand for building services as the cost of living crisis bites.”

Mr Berry continued: “If the market continues to stagnate, many of these local building firms will face difficulty remaining solvent.

“The Government must set out a credible plan for keeping the small building firms afloat.

“The upcoming planning reforms must make it easier for small housing developers, and reverse their decades of decline.

“The Government should also bring forward a long-term National Retrofit Strategy to decarbonise the nation’s homes, which would create a stable workstream for local builders whilst also moving the UK closer to net zero.”

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Out of office with…

Mary Pottinger of The London Irish Construction Network FOUNDED in London in 2009, The London Irish Construction Network (TLICN) was the brainchild of five Irish businessmen who all worked in the construction industry.

Frank O’Hare, Danny Fealy, Con O’Sullivan, Niall O’Dowd and Sean Daly all commuted between Britain and Ireland on a weekly basis and met regularly on those flights between the two countries.

With the recession starting to hit businesses hard, they decided to do something to help one another – and potentially others also in their

position – through networking and sharing experiences, contacts and opportunities.

With that TLICN was born and it proved popular immediately, drawing a vast membership base across all sectors of the construction industry in the capital.

It was so popular, in fact, that within six months of its launch Mary Pottinger was brought in by the board of TLICN directors to help them manage the membership and organise their events.

Mrs Pottinger was born in Bolton, northwest England to

parents who hailed from counties Limerick and Roscommon.

Now living in Hertfordshire for nearly 30 years, with her husband and 14-year-old daughter, Mrs Pottinger continues to organise events and oversee the administration at TLICN, which has grown to become one of the largest Irish business networks in Britain.

As with all of the TLICN directors, Mrs Pottinger’s role with TLICN is part-time, which she fits in around her day to day job.

along with my day-to-day work roles, it all gets rather hectic in the days before an event.

WHAT IS YOUR ROLE AT TLICN? I deal with all the memberships, enquiries and arranging attendance at our TLICN events. I’ve been with TLICN for over 12 years now, as I started six months after the network was launched at the Irish Club in London in 2009.

TLICN is a part-time role for all of us who are involved.

We all have other roles and fit TLICN in around those, which can be challenging at times.

HOW AND WHY DID YOU BECOME INVOLVED WITH THE NETWORK? The directors of TLICN originally met each other on the weekly commute between London and Ireland.

They all worked in construction and as the recession had started to bite, they wanted to

WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT YOUR WORK WITH TLICN?

TLICN’s Mary Pottinger pictured with the Mayor of Islington, Cllr Troy Gallagher at a recent event hosted by the network find a way to help each other and others who had been affected.

After TLICN was launched at the Irish Club in London in 2009, there was an explosion of interest.

The directors were struggling to handle all the membership

TLICN co-founders Danny Fealy, Con O’Sullivan, Niall O’Dowd, Sean Daly and Frank O’Hare pictured at one of their early events

enquiries and planning events along with their full-time roles and their weekly commutes, therefore I was asked to come on board and assist.

WHAT DO YOUR USUAL TASKS WITHIN THE ORGANISATION INVOLVE? I am usually the initial contact for existing and prospective TLICN members.

I deal with signing up new members, renewing existing memberships and all general enquires, along with arranging attendance to the events.

WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES IN YOUR ROLE? The biggest challenge for me is fitting in the arranging of events

I very much enjoy attending the events, meeting the attendees and seeing the difference TLICN has made to people’s businesses over the years due to the introductions they have made.

IS THERE A HIGHLIGHT MOMENT OF YOUR TIME WITH THE NETWORK TO DATE? One of the highlights was celebrating TLICN’s 10th anniversary at the Irish Embassy in 2019. And an annual highlight is our event in the House of Commons in Westminster - it always has such a wonderful atmosphere.

THE NETWORK HAS GROWN STEADILY OVER THE YEARS, WHY DO YOU THINK IT’S SO POPULAR? Being a niche networking group focused on construction, everybody who attends immediately has something in common.

We’re also a very friendly and welcoming group, each event

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has attendees that have been members since the beginning along with new members, there’s always a great mix of people.

HAVE THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE MEMBERSHIP CHANGED AT ALL OVER THE YEARS? The demographics really changed for a while when Ireland was suffering the worst effects of the recession, many more were travelling over from Ireland to attend our events, but that has settled now, although many do still travel to attend.

WHAT MOTIVATES YOU IN YOUR WORK LIFE? I like to always give a good service and feel job satisfaction at the end of the day.

WHO WOULD YOU SAY HAS INFLUENCED YOUR CAREER MOST TO DATE? I originally came ‘down south’ in the 1990s to work for an uncle who ran his own construction business.

I worked on site for a while, and he taught me a huge amount about the industry.

WHAT BOOK/PODCAST ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING/ LISTENING TO?

Deirdre Curley and Patrick Rochford from the Irish Embassy (2nd and 3rd left) and Carol Monaghan MP (5th left) are pictured with Frank O’Hare, Nicole Daly, Con O’Sullivan, Mary Pottinger and Sean Daly from TLICN at their 2022 event held at the House of Commons I’m a massive fan of podcasts and subscribe to far too many of them.

I especially enjoy political discussions, interviews, and true crime.

This morning, whilst walking the dog, I listened to How to Fail, it’s a series of interviews focusing on how success can come from life’s failures.

WHERE IS YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE IN IRELAND? For my tenth birthday, I spent the day on the beach in

FOND MEMORIES: Ballybunion Beach in Co. Kerry

Ballybunnion, Co. Kerry, and the place holds very special memories for me.

WHAT’S THE BIGGEST GOAL FOR TLICN OVER THE NEXT 12 MONTHS? We are in the process of planning more events and hope to continue to help the construction industry and its related businesses.

And as a non-profit making organisation, everyone at TLICN would like to say a big thank you to our sponsors,

Evans Mockler Accountants, Ardent Tide, Galliard Homes, HD Construction Solutions and North London Structures and Groundworks.

Without them, we couldn’t do what we do.

For further information about TLICN or how to become a member visit tlicn.com or email info@tlicn.com

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Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2022

Summer lunch for Lighthouse Charity THE relaunch of the Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity Ireland Summer Lunch recently took place for the first time in Croke Park, Dublin.

Over 350 guests from the construction sector gathered there for an afternoon of networking, laughter and fundraising to support the great work of the charity.

The event was organised by iQuest & Business Post LIVE and chaired by powerhouse speaker Ivan Yates.

Lighthouse Club Chair Derek Murphy opened the event, welcoming their many guests, which included Loretto Dalton, Joe Lambe, Ian Erskine, Tom O’Keeffe and Brian Daly of the Lighthouse Club.

All five members of the club

joined together to unveil a newly restored lighthouse monument, and Lighthouse Regional Ambassador of Ireland, Colleen Milligan also took to the stage to give guests an insight into the workings of the charity.

Between courses, Mr Yates chaired a spirited panel discussion which featured a selection of Irish sports stars – including footballer Stephanie Roche, Olympic athlete David Gillick, CEO of the Gaelic Players Association, Tom Parsons, Olympic medallist John Treacy as well as former Irish Rugby Union player Shane Byrne and former Irish sailor Ciara Peelo.

The group debated the highs of their careers, mental health in sport and life after

competing.

A lively auction in aid of the Lighthouse Charity Ireland also took place on the day, after which guests networked and socialised into the evening against the backdrop of live music. The Lighthouse Charity Ireland Summer Lunch will become an annual event.

The Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity is the only charity that provides

emotional, physical and financial wellbeing support to construction workers and their families.

As an organisation it receives no public funding, so it relies on the generosity of those within the industry to continue its vital work.

It was first founded in 1956.

For further information visit www.lighthouseclub.org

Irish Post THE

FUNDRAISING FUN: A host of guests enjoyed a day of fundraising at the Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity Ireland Summer Lunch

Building Britain 2022

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He was our big mouth - he’d always have an answer for everything, except for why he should still be here.

He was such a polite lad, it didn’t make sense when he left without saying goodbye.

He was the last off-site everyday, then one night, he left us way too early.

Our industry can be physically and mentally tough. Together with our partners and donors, the Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity are working night and day to ensure no worker or family feels alone in a crisis.

So if you or a workmate need support, we are always here to help.

Registered Charity No. UK 1149488 | Registered Charity No. ROI 20200334.

Company No. 08244118 | Copyright Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity 2021.

Experts In: Groundworks, RC Frames, Temporary Works

MILTON KEYES

BIRMINGHAM

CANADA WATER

NEPTUNE

MOUNT PLEASANT

STRIVING FOR EXCELLENCE IN ALL THAT WE DO Kilhan Construction Ltd | info@kilhan-construction.co.uk | 020 8903 0492

kilhan-construction.co.uk / kilhan-construction-ltd