Cooraclare’s Enda McGuane elected President of Chartered Surveyors

COORACLARE’S Enda McGuane has been elected as the new President of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, writes

Páraic McMahon

A former officer in the Defence Forces where he took part in deployments to Lebanon and East Timor, Enda was first introduced to surveying as part of an artillery training course.

Following his time in the Defence Forces, he worked in a variety of property related roles, both in the public and private sectors and spent the last 10 years running a property management business in Galway. A long-standing member of the SCSI, he has held a number of senior roles in the organisation including Chair of the West / Northwest Regional Committee.

Currently, he works as the Asset Management Lead for the Land Development Agency. In this capacity, he has responsibility for cost rental housing as well as land and site

16th - 24th June at Mount St. Alphonsus

6 times daily management. One of the key projects he is working on is Project Tosaigh which has expanded in recent months and will see the LDA purchase 5,000 homes which will be made available as cost rental or affordable to purchase homes.

Enda has said over 100,000 workers will be needed in the Irish property, land and construction sectors over the next decade including thousands of surveyors. A recent report by the SCSI found that if the economy grows by 4% per annum, there will be a shortage of almost 1,100 chartered surveyors between now and 2026.

He maintained the shortage of skilled workers across the three sectors is one of the main constraints on the country’s ability to address the housing crisis as well as key infrastructural and commercial developments. Inflation and rising interest rates are among the other main challenges facing the country and the construction, property, and land sectors, he added.

McGuane said enhancing the SCSI’s role in education and exploring how it can improve the built environment’s performance from a sustainability perspective will be key priorities during his term in office. “The SCSI has always been a repository of knowledge and a driver of standards in both education and practise and plays an influential role through the production of high-quality cross sector market reports and data-driven analysis. The Society currently encompasses all surveying courses run across a variety of third-level institutes in Ireland. I want to build on those relationships and to grow the number of young people who choose surveying as a career.

“There are a range of exciting new areas so whether its modular construction, operational data analysis or sustainability consultancy, young people should look at what drives them and identify the relevant surveying discipline. From a sustainability perspective, the built environment is a huge contributor to our carbon footprint. We need to devise and implement practices to reduce carbon emissions as a matter of urgency,” he added.

Aged 49, Enda is married to Helen and has three young children aged between 7 and 13.