The Irish Post Building Britain 2018

Summer 2018 | irishpost.com

1

Britain

PAT GALLAGHER

The Gallagher Group Chairman on vision, values and building for the future

GOING WILDE

Staycity’s London adventure page 1.indd 1

STAR PLAYERS Who to watch in 2018

23/05/2018 10:57

LTD RAIL POSSESSION

BRANTHAM HALL

Galldris is a construction company with 20 years of expertise in an everchanging and challenging industry. Formed by Donal Gallagher and Sean O’Driscoll, Galldris is acknowledged as a company that develops long lasting client relationships, completing projects of outstanding quality.

We believe in being progressive, and consistent. Promoting high standards, ethics and morals in everything we do.

M COM

EDUCATION

L ENTIA ESID L/ R

RAIL / UNDERGROUND

ERCIA

BRIGHTON COLLEGE SPORTS & SCIENCE

KINGS CROSS STATION TUNNELLING / SHAFTS

FINSBURY PARK STATION

RETAIL / RESIDENTIAL / OFFICE

ROYAL ALBERT DOCK LONDON

WAREHOUSE / DISTRIBUTION

TESCO DISTRIBUTION CENTRE READING

OPERATIONS MAINTENANCE CENTRE

AVIATION SERVICE WORKS

HEATHROW AIRPORT CONCRETE STRUCTURES

OLD OAK COMMON RAIL DEPOT ELIZABETH LINE

WAPPING LANE LONDON

01992 763 000

Info@galldris.co.uk

@ www.galldris.co.uk

THE GALLDRIS GROUP, Galldris House. Pavilion Business Centre, Kinetic Crescent, Innova Park, Enfield EN3 7FJ Untitled-1 2

23/05/2018 09:44

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

London goes Wilde

Summer 2018 | irishpost.com

1

3

Britain

O

PAT GALLAGHER The Gallagher Group Chairman on vision, values and building for the future

S STAR PLAYER GOING WILDE Who to watch in 2018 adventure Staycity’s London

23/05/2018 10:57 page 1.indd 1

COVER STAR: Pat Gallagher and daughter Lyndsey of The Gallagher Group

This year we’re talking about...

PROJECTS IN 2018 The Irish companies building Britain in 2018 pages 4-12 UP & COMING Ones to watch page 16 PAT GALLAGHER Building a legacy pages 19-21 NORTHERN IRELAND Time for change? pages 24-26 SKILLS SHORTAGE The Brexit effect pages 30-32 TECHNOLOGY Forward thinking pages 34-35 NETWORKING Out & About with TLICN pages 36-37 THE COMMUTER The road less travelled page 39 OUT OF OFFICE 10 minutes with Donagh O’Sullivan page 42

Editor-in-Chief: Siobhán Breatnach Research & reporting: Pádraig Belton Photography: Getty Images, iStock Production: Lee Duskwick Advertising: Sarah Murphy, Marita Quigley, Oisin Kavanagh, Richard Lambert Building Britain 2018 Printed by Warners Midlands Plc Published by The Irish Post, 88 Fenchurch Street, London EC3M 4BY Tel: 020 8900 4159

ne of London’s newest developments has a distinctly Irish look and feel.

Wilde Aparthotels by Staycity was officially opened on London’s The Strand in April.

The 106-room building, managed by LaSalle Investment Management on behalf of one of its clients, was developed for Staycity by Galliard. Staycity Aparthotels has a 35-year lease on the property.

The Wilde concept was created by Staycity’s in-house design team along with renowned architects Heneghan Peng, hospitality design experts O Donnell O Neill (OODA) and Dublin-based branding agency Zinc Design.

The ribbon on the first of Staycity Group’s premium brand, Wilde, was cut by CEO and founder Tom Walsh and Merlin Holland, only grandson of Oscar Wilde.

Staycity intends to roll out the Wilde brand across gateway city centre locations throughout Europe.

The Strand will be followed by a second on Edinburgh’s King’s Stables Road (123 apartments) at the end of 2019, two properties in Berlin opening 2019/2020, and another on Manchester’s St Peter’s Square opening in 2020 with 256 apartments.

Merlin Holland, the only grandson of famous Irish playwright and poet Oscar Wilde, was the guest of honour at the official opening.

“My grandfather took a great interest in aesthetics, particularly in interior design,” he said.

“He memorably said ‘have nothing in your house that is not useful or beautiful’.”

CEO and company founder Tom Walsh said: “We SPECIAL GUEST: Oscar Wilde’s grandson were honoured to have Merlin with us to mark the Merlin Holland (second left) joins members opening of our first Wilde and to share some insight of the Staycity team in London into his famous grandfather. It’s fitting that our first Wilde is close to where Oscar lived in London. It is also opposite the Vaudeville Theatre, currently hosting an Oscar Wilde season, and is a short walk from the Oscar Wilde memorial, near Charing Cross.”

Staycity was founded in 2004 by Tom Walsh and his brother Ger, starting with a single apartment in Dublin’s Temple Bar, a former recording studio used by the likes of U2.

The company’s expanding estate includes properties in Dublin (179 apartments), CHEERS: Tom Walsh, Edinburgh (146), Manchester (266), Staycity founder & CEO Liverpool (56), Birmingham (249), London Heathrow (269), London Greenwich (166), London Strand (106), Paris (50), York (197), Marseille (108) and Lyon (144) with new properties scheduled to open in Liverpool, Disneyland Paris, Dublin, Venice, Manchester and Berlin.

SMILES: Jason Delany, The company is on target to director of brand, product & IN CONVERSATION: Keith achieve its stated aim of 15,000 marketing, Staycity Somers, head of design, Staycity apartments by 2022.

Visit us online: irishpost.com Find us /TheIrishPost Follow us @TheIrishPost #buildingbritain Connect with us The Irish Post

page 3.indd 3

GRAND OPENING: Linda Pettit, Tilburstow Media Partners & Joyce Cawthorne, marketing & media manager, ASAP

ENJOYING THE NIGHT: Keith Freeman, COO, Staycity Group, with Jason Delany & Tom Walsh

23/05/2018 17:12

4

Building Britain 2018

PROJECT 2018 PÁDRAIG BELTON reports on the Irish firms at work in Britain

D

ESPITE the risk from Brexit, Irish firms are still viewing the UK as the market with the best near-to-medium term opportunities in 2018.

And public infrastructure projects, the UK Government’s ‘build to rent’ schemes, and housing are the areas in which Irish firms currently see the most opportunity, says Stephen Hughes, Enterprise Ireland’s head of construction.

page 4-12.indd 4

23/05/2018 11:04

PRECISION IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD

DRS Bond Management is an acknowledged leader in surety broking, formed with the single-minded objective of delivering a state of the art approach to bond management and surety advisory services.

Precision defines DRS, providing certainty to clients through an exacting, reliable and responsive focus. DRS is the trusted surety advisor to leading names in the construction and engineering sectors, as well as other companies in multiple sectors.

020 7471 8710 enquiries@drsbonds.co.uk

DRS arranges surety solutions for a vast range of bonding needs, including: • Performance Bonds; • Retention Bonds; • Advance Payment Bonds; • Highways Bonds; • National House Building Council (“NHBC”) Bonds; • Bid Bonds; • Duty Deferment Bonds; • Rural Payment Agency (“RPA”) Bonds; • Waste Resources Action Programme (“WRAP”) Bonds; • Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Bonds; • Restoration Bonds; • Letter of Credit (“LOC”) Replacement Guarantees.

@DRSBonds

DRS Bond Management Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority No. 500737. The Financial Conduct Authority do not regulate all of the products and services we provide. Registered in England and Wales No. 6823289.

Untitled-3 3

www.drsbonds.co.uk

23/05/2018 14:44

6

Building Britain 2018

STADIUM VIEW: Wembley Park

WEMBLEY PARK Sisk, which has in recent years employed more construction staff in the UK than in Ireland, in November signed Wembley Park’s largest ever construction contract, for £211million.

The contract is to build 743 built-to-rent homes. 303 of these will be affordable housing units, intended to be rented at no more than 80 per cent of their market value, which will share a roof terrace with views of Wembley Stadium.

This project is due to complete in 2020. For Sisk, it is part of a 12-year partnership with British developers Quintain in the redevelopment of Wembley - one that already has seen them reconfigure the Wembley Arena and construct the Hilton London Wembley Hotel.

Sisk chief executive Stephen Bowcott noted that his company received a November 2017 ‘Pride of Brent’ award from the borough’s mayor for its engagement with the local community around Wembley, which has included employing 40 per cent of local labour on the site.

GREAT ORMOND STREET HOSPITAL Sisk also has been selected to work on the redevelopment of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.

It is a £190million, 240,000 square foot project which will see the creation of a new main entrance along with essential clinical facilities.

Sisk worked with architects firm BDP to come up with a ‘four houses’ design continued on page 10

page 4-12.indd 6

23/05/2018 11:05

Award-winning specialists in high quality external works, hard landscaping, highway works and civil engineering projects across London

SIDE L NTIA

OPERATIONS MAINTENANCE CENTRE

maylim.co.uk (+44) 207 785 6996 info@maylim.co.uk

7FJ Untitled-1 3

23/05/2018 09:46

Galliard_BuildinginBritain_DPS_06.18 17/05/2018 10:31 Page 1

412 spectacular suites, 1, 2 & 3 bedroom apartments and 4 bedroom penthouses within an iconic 37 level tower complete with 32nd level sky lounge and terrace, residents private cinema, games lounge, advanced I.T. business suites and Equinox at The Stage - a new performance driven fitness coaching club located within the development.

A dynamic new landmark for luxury living, themed by the discovery of the remains of Shakespeare’s Curtain Theatre.

32nd level sky lounge and terrace.

Exclusive lifestyle facilities including residents private cinema, games lounge with bowling lanes, salon, spa, gym executive lounge & business suites.

24 hour luxury concierge and services by Rhodium.

5 minutes walk from Liverpool Street station with tube, mainline and forthcoming Crossrail services.

Galliard

London’s largest privately owned developer

Galliard Homes Stage Marketing Suite

020 3770 2154 IN JOINT VENTURE WITH

RESIDENTIAL AGENT

Untitled-1 2

23/05/2018 09:50

Maine Tower will be the principal all private residential tower within a 2.65 acre showcase development collectively known as Harbour Central.

This exceptional new high quality scheme is planned to include street level bars, al-fresco dining, retail and office space, together with new green squares, water features and tree lined public realm.

Choice of luxurious studio and apartment styles.

Opulent double height art deco themed reception foyer with interior design by Nicola Fontanella.

24 hour concierge.

Exclusive lifestyle facilities including private cinema, gym, health spa, business centre, club lounge and champagne bar.

Minutes from tube, DLR, riverbus and forthcoming Crossrail services.

Galliard

MAINE TOWER

Building on Success galliardhomes.com

HARBOUR CENTRAL MILLHARBOUR LONDON E14

Galliard Homes London Central Sales

020 7620 1500

Untitled-1 3

23/05/2018 09:50

10

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

MURPHY’S LAW: Irish firm Murphy & Sons will be working in Glasgow

concept with the Royal Institute of British Architects praised as responding to the domestic scale of Great Ormond Street.

Sisk beat early favourites, struggling Swedish construction group Skanska to the contract.

(Skanska in January issued a profit warning and looked to shed 3,000 jobs).

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION CENTRE WALES

of Carillion in January 2018, Murphy & Sons managed to walk away with Carillion’s position on National Grid’s electricity contracts.

The agreement, in February, will see Murphy take over Carillion’s substantial positions on the National Grid’s electricity overheard lines, substations, and underground cable frameworks.

These include a new overheard line between the Canterbury North 400kV substation and a new 400 kV substation at Richborough in Kent.

The Richborough site forms part of the first connection between the UK and the grid on the Continent, and will be linked with Zeebrugge in Belgium by a submarine power cable which is 140 kilometers long.

KING’S CROSS STATION Murphy also is busy demolishing and rebuilding King’s Cross Bridge, in London’s King’s Cross

Station, which presents challenges they call ‘almost unprecedented in scale’.

The site lies directly above two rail tunnels, and with the retained basement slab actually being the tunnel soffit of the Metropolitan Line and the Moorgate Line— which has meant planning not only with the London Underground network, but also with Network Rail.

Above ground, the site is one of the busiest cross-sections in the capital, making logistics a

Sisk began work in March on the new International Convention Centre Wales, an £83 million project which will open in June 2019.

The slate building in Newport with a double-height glass atrium will have room for 5,000 delegates, offer 2,000 parking spaces, with bridges into fresh air and woodland.

Sisk Group chief executive Stephen Bowcott called the project ‘a proud return to Wales for the Sisk Group.’

TAKING OVER FOR CARILLION Meanwhile, after the liquidation

page 4-12.indd 10

STRIKING: London’s King’s Cross

23/05/2018 11:05

Untitled-1 3

23/05/2018 10:35

12

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

REDEVELOPMENT: Great Ormond Street

huge challenge and regular deliveries almost impossible. And with so little adjacent space on the site, using necessary equipment like tower cranes in a traditional manner was also impossible.

BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS And at the other end of the line, Murphy also is working on a complex high pressure pipeline replacement project near Glasgow, replacing the Glasgow Circular’s current pipelines across the Erskine Bridge and Old Kilpatrick to cross the River Clyde.

Sisk is using several innovative techniques including trenchless installation, horizontal directional drilling, and micro tunnelling to overcome a number of the challenges on a river bed set on abrasive bedrock, boulders, and steep angles at the riverbank.

STERLING IS SWINGING Meanwhile, Irish firms taking on substantial projects in the UK are looking for ways to hedge against Brexit, and in particular, to mitigate currency volatility.

The pound was worth €1.43 on November 22, 2015, but €1.14 at the start of May 2018.

This is good news if you are an

Irish company seeking to invest in your UK operations. Less helpful if you are an Irish firm weighing up the revenues from large UK projects, and you just happen to report your earnings in euro.

Britain failing to secure a trade deal with the EU could drop sterling down to parity with the euro, says Roger Hallam, currency chief investment officer at JP Morgan Asset Management.

It is more volatility ‘for quite some time to come’ that is more likely to characterise the short-term relationship between sterling and the euro, says Peter Dixon, Commerzbank’s chief UK economist.

But there are ways to guard against currency volatility, firms told specialist bank and asset manager Investec in a survey.

Sourcing through more UK suppliers is one.

Another is hedging currency risk by using financial products, like currency forwards, currency futures, currency options, or currency electronically traded funds (ETFs).

These instruments are helping Irish companies continue to price and tender longer-term projects in Britain.

Though 70 per cent of Irish construction firms also are eyeing post-Brexit opportunities in Continental Europe, UK construction looks set to continue to offer sizable opportunities for Ireland to continue building Britain.

PRIME PROJECT: The proposed International Convention Cenrtre in Wales

page 4-12.indd 12

23/05/2018 11:05

C

M

Y

PHD GROUP: THE WORLD’S G O -TO S P E C I A L I S T S Since 1984 PHD Group has built an internationally recognised brand in the Construction Industry. PHD is a name synonymous with excellence in both safety and construction solutions. As a group we have four distinguished companies able to offer a one stop construction service.

M

MY

Y

MY

K

PHD Modular Access Services Ltd

winners of the Construction News, Access & Scaffolding Specialists of the year award, PHD provides the industry with bespoke access solutions, producing challenging engineered ideas with innovative techniques. Our proactive health and safety ethos maintains a controlled and managed approach to work at height.

Project7 Construction Ltd an International Construction, Fit-Out, Refurbishment and Logistics specialist. Project7 has a reputation for successfully delivering complex, logistically challenging projects to high safety and quality standards using conventional and innovative techniques.

We provide bespoke construction delivery solutions for private clients, main contractors and the public sector from inception through to completion.

www.phdaccess.com info@phdaccess.com Tel: 01895 822 292

www.p7.co.uk info@p7.co.uk Tel: 01895 813 627

Overlay Events Ltd

PHD Hoists & Masts Ltd

brings a unique service to the events industry including the provision of pedestrian bridges, staging, under structure, public screen supports, film & TV, broadcast studios and complex requirements including temporary elevators. Experience includes London Olympic Games 2012, Commonwealth Games 2014, Rugby World Cup 2015 and FIFA Beach Soccer 2017.

supports the core business in providing a concept of “Total Access Solutions” under one roof.

The company specialises in providing hoists, transport platforms, mast climbing work platforms, cradles and engineered hoisting solutions to the construction industry and beyond. With Hoists & Masts “the sky is the limit”.

www.overlayevents.com info@overlayevents.com Tel: 0203 693 4925

www.phdhm.com info@phdhm.com Tel: 01895 822 292

www.phdgroup.co.uk Untitled-1 3

23/05/2018 09:52

Untitled-1 4

23/05/2018 10:14

Untitled-1 5

23/05/2018 10:14

16

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

STAR PERFORMERS

By Pádraig Belton

T

he Irish construction sector needs an additional 110,000 new professionals in the next three years to keep pace with the demand for new construction, the Construction Industry Federation says.

And this is only to meet demand in Ireland, it adds.

Fortunately, though, there’s constellations of Irish stars at work in the sector—with many of them also lending a hand in building Britain, too.

Star Irish professionals working on British projects this year include figures like these: Paul Bruton, joint managing director of Bennett Construction, who collected a 2018 Irish Construction Excellence Award for the FiftySevenEast project in Kingsland, in London’s Dalston neighbourhood. In 2017, Bennett was named Contractor of the Year in the Irish Construction Industry Awards.

Bennett had 220 employees at the height of the Celtic Tiger years, but after the recession that number shrank by 75 per cent.

Pursuing British opportunities in the lean years, beginning with the conversion of a 19th century printworks into a retail space in Covent Garden’s Long Acre street, let Bruton rebuild the firm, which now has 114 staff members.

Other British projects Bruton’s firm has taken on have included a 24-storey tower near Aldgate, in London’s East End, and repeat business at the Oval Cricket Ground in Vauxhall.

Frank O’Leary, who received the Royal Academy of Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year competition in June 2017.

O’Leary is a chartered geotechnical engineer who studied for his PhD at University College Dublin, and is now with UK firm Arup.

His PhD research has struck new depths in deep excavation projects, exploring the behaviour of retaining walls in clay.

This research has included using fibre optics to test the integrity of foundations.

He has been putting it into practice recently, including by excavating a five-storey

page 16.indd 16

basement underneath a Grade-II listed hotel in central London’s Mayfair district.

Níall McLaughlin, who runs a burgeoning architectural firm in London and has won Young British Architect of the Year and been a BBC Rising Star.

A UCD graduate, he is also now a professor of architecture at University College London, and has been a visiting architecture professor at Yale.

In April 2018, his West Court project for Jesus College, Cambridge, was selected as the overall winner of the American Institute of Architecture UK Awards.

It beat a strong shortlist of 20 which included Foster + Partners’ Bloomberg European Headquarters, which London’s mayor Sadiq Khan called a’ vote of confidence in London’.

TALENT: Níall McLaughlin Bernard Cosgrove, project manager from contractors JJ Rhatigan who has overseen the successful redevelopment of a dilapidated Colliers Wood tower which was voted London’s ugliest building in a 2006 BBC poll.

Formerly a 1960s office block built in the Chicago School Style, the building was first known as the Lyon Tower, then the Vortex, and became the Brown & Root tower after American engineering firm Brown & Root Halliburton, which occupied it from 1971 to 1995.

Also voted one of the 12 ugliest buildings of the UK in a 2005 Channel 4 poll, ‘the building was hideous’, says estate agents SW19 director Luke Bennett.

“This tower was ... the landmark referred to when directing people to Colliers Wood, but not in a good way,” he adds.

That eyesore now has been

RISING STAR: Frank O’Leary replaced by 182 apartments, ground floor retail units, and extensive landscaping in a £26million redevelopment.

Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey, who share an architecture practice in Dublin and also both lecture at UCD, have garnered awards for their new Saw Swee Hock Student Centre for the London School of Economics.

“Like a Japanese puzzle, our design is carefully assembled to make one coherent volume from a complex set of interdependent component parts,” say the two.

The student centre has been variously described as ‘a fold-out marvel that ducks and dodges between its neighbours’ right to light’ (architecture critic Oliver Wainwright) and a ‘red brick Eiger’ (author and former Critic of the Year Rowan Moore).

LSE’s new piece of architectural

origami, named for Hock, a generous Singaporean graduate benefactor, won the Westminster Society Biennial Award for Architecture and the Royal Institute of British Architects London Building of the Year Award.

These stars are coming out not a minute too soon.

The Irish Construction Industry Federation says the industry has regained fewer than a third of the jobs which were lost between 2007 and 2012.

An April report from the Central Bank of Ireland shows one in two workers who lost their jobs in Ireland after the 2008 financial crisis previously had worked in construction.

Many of these have emigrated, says CIF spokesman Dermot Carey.

But by attracting spectacular rising talent, Irish construction is rebuilding, from the bottom up.

23/05/2018 10:55

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

17

UNLOCKING ENERGY SAVINGS FOR OUR CUSTOMERS ESB’s Smart Energy Services team is delivering up to 60% energy savings to large businesses across the UK and Ireland. As the energy people, we consult, implement and optimise energy efficiency in Ardagh Group, BWG Foods, Dublin Airport, Tesco and many other leading organisations.

To find out how we can help your business save today visit esbgroup.co.uk/smartenergy

Building Britain template.indd 17

23/05/2018 10:32

30 210x297_Bleed_CARA Advert 2018.indd 1 Untitled-2 2

26/02/2018 15:56 14:23 23/05/2018

19

Building Britain 2018

BORN IN IRELAND, MADE IN KENT Pat Gallagher, Chairman of The Gallagher Group, tells SIOBHÁN BREATNACH how a bright-eyed teenager from Leitrim became one of Britain’s most successful business men

“A

ll of a sudden you realise, one day, you’re in a foreign country and all you have to rely on is your own ability to get up off your backside and do something.

page 19-21.indd 19

“And the one thing, it’s in a lot of Irish, we’re very proud, we take great pride in what we do whether it’s dancing in a dance hall or digging in a trench - we’re proud of where we come from,

proud of who we are.”

Padraic ‘Pat’ Gallagher was just 17 when his parents Packie and Lucy made the decision to leave their native Leitrim and come to England.

“Mum made the decision, she

was the driving force of the family,” Pat recalls.

Kent was the destination of choice, mainly because his aunt Rose was already living there.

23/05/2018 16:04

20

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

STRIKING: Scania Maidstone Depot

SPORTS SUPPORTER: Maidstone United’s Gallagher Stadium Though Ireland and he beloved Leitrim will be forever in his heart, Kent has become a home from home for the inspiring Irishman.

“Kent is different to London or anywhere else,” he says. “My mother said to me the friends we made in Kent were the best friends we ever had and I live by that.

“You don’t make a friend in Kent in five minutes but by God when you make them you’re friends for life.

“Good people were special to us.

Our success today is our people.

“It’s the people I’ve met that gave me the business, the people that I found that helped me with the work…management, honesty, loyalty – all of that, that’s the Gallagher success today.”

Over the last 45 years, it’s been those qualities that have taken The Gallagher Group to the point of turning over £110million and employing 500 people.

Not bad going for a young man from Aughnasheelin who took a gruelling boat and train ride to Britain 1966 – with his parents and younger brother Michael in tow and no idea what life had in store.

Perhaps it was growing up in what he describes as a ‘busy and industrious’ household that has

spurred Gallagher to the heights he has reached today.

Or perhaps it was seeing, aged 17, how difficult the decision was for his parents to pack up and leave everything that was familiar behind in the hope of a better life elsewhere.

The evening before they sailed, Pat’s last job was to rehome the family dog Major.

But what is for certain is that business runs in the Gallagher blood.

Before leaving for England, his mother ran the family’s grocer shop on the foothills of the Sliabh an Iaraninn Mountains.

His father, meanwhile, farmed the surrounding lands.

Having attended Tullybawn National School until the age of 14, followed by a stint Rosary High School in Carrick-onShannon and Drumshanbo Technical School, at 16 Pat got his first job working as an apprentice mechanic at Sean Gildea’s garage at Drumshanbo.

A year later, Britain beckoned.

The Gallagher family arrived in the small village of Aylesford in October 1966.

His first job in Kent was making

DESIGN DETAIL:: Next Home and Fashion store, Maidstone

Jubilee clips for three shillings an hour and sweeping workshop floors for Kent County Council.

But it wasn’t long before the construction industry came calling – as it did for many young Irish men at the time.

“I thought I’ll be a tradesman, I’ll be a plasterer, but I was useless,” he jokes, describing how he first became a plasterer’s mate for the Ferguson Brothers - a plastering and floor-laying contractor.

“Tony Ferguson and his family are still an important part of my life, with Tony being one of my best friends.”

He later joined PJ Burke Kent Ltd – a civil engineering and plant hire company – run by Pat Burke.

“I plucked up the courage when I got to know Pat and his wife, I told them that one day I’d like to be on my own, doing my own

thing.” he says. “And his words to me, and I’ve lived by it since, there’s enough in this world for all of us. He is still one of my best friends to this day.”

Pat bought his first JCB digger (“It cost £2,200 - it as a hell of a lot of money.”) in 1971 in what was to be the first stepping stone to building The Gallagher Group, now one of the largest privately-owned building, civil engineering, quarrying, aggregates and property businesses in Kent.

In March, Gallagher was honoured by the Leitrim Society in New York for his contribution to Ireland and the community in which he lives.

Dozens and dozens of touching tributes were paid to mark the occasion, including one from former employee Bill Masterson, who spent 37 years with the company.

“We have been through many good, bad and sad times together,” he said. “As we grow older some of us are now retired but not Pat. He is truly an entrepreneur, always on the go and thinking ahead.

“Like many of us he came over with little but through hard work and taking risks he has ended up on top of his game.

BUILDING A LEGACY: Gallagher mixers at Scania Maidstone Depot

page 19-21.indd 20

23/05/2018 16:06

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

21

GUEST OF HONOUR: Pat with his friends and family in New York

“But unlike many successful people, Pat is kind, caring and generous to others and we are lucky enough to benefit from his success.

Well done Pat, no better man.”

Armed with a burning desire to work for himself and that strong work ethic instilled by his parents, Pat was flying high professionally and personally.

Though life was not without its heart-breaking moments.

In 1975, his father Packie was killed in an accident at the sewerage treatment works where he worked.

His mother Lucy later moved back home, but as Pat laments: “It was never the same, Ireland had moved on.”

There was joy, however, when Pat met and married his sweetheart Mary Boylan from Ballybay in Co. Monaghan, who was a nurse at Maidstone Hospital.

The Gallaghers would go on to become great supporters of the hospital, helping fundraise for a new CT scanner.

They are also big supporters of the Heart of Kent Hospice among other charities and many of the

page 19-21.indd 21

county’s local sports teams including Aylesford Bulls Rugby Club and Maidstone United Soccer Club, where the stadium is now called the Gallagher Stadium.

“You never go skint making profit but you don’t need it all for yourself,” Pat says.

A father-of-four and a grandfather-of-six, he has a keen eye for an opportunity but it is his creative vision and attention to the smallest details that sets him apart.

As Chairman of the company, his enthusiasm for life and business shows no signs of slowing down – something that is inspiring the next generation.

His two sons, Richard and Stephen and daughter Lyndsey all work for the family firm, while youngest daughter Nicola is a teacher.

“Where we live in Kent, there are great people doing great things, it’s our duty to go out and work hard and have a successful business and to contribute - to help them do what they are doing, It’s a duty, it’s a pleasure and an honour.

“I hope the next generation of Gallaghers - and I know they will because my kids are like that – I hope that’s something we’d always be seen to be doing.

“However good you are this year your ambition should be to be even better next year, in every respect,” he adds.

“It’s not about the money in the bank, yes that’s the first confirming thing, we had a lot of years with nothing in the bank.

“You woke up Monday morning and the first worry you had was where will the money come from to pay the wages? Where will the money come from the pay the bills? You had to live with that fear.

“The first 20 or 30 years were a struggle, as I described it once, we had Champagne tastes and lemonade money.

“But no matter what you had you were striving. If it was a digger you had you wanted a better one, if it was a job you had you wanted a bigger one.”

In the book of tributes from his special night in New York earlier this year, there are countless notes of

thanks and praise for Pat Gallagher.

“We first met in The Bush 51 years ago and have been friends ever since,” a man called Colin writes. “You’re the kindest most generous man I have met and have touched so many people’s lives with your generosity.”

Brendan and Teresa McGahey add: “His love for life and renowned parties have brought many people together over the years and brought so much enjoyment to all.”

But for Pat, he considers himself to be the one who has been most fortunate in life.

“The people I met, the people I employed, the people who stayed with me,” he says. “I have been extremely lucky.”

His other passion is race horses, with three of the most cherished called Iron Mountain, Leitrim House and Earl of Leitrim.

He’s still very much a Leitrim man at heart, with the group’s head office even called Leitrim House.

Paying tribute to him when he received his accolade in the US, former jockey and horse trainer Richard Hughes said: “Twenty years ago our paths crossed in the horse industry. I hope the next 20 are as much fun, you have been a great friend and mentor throughout my career.”

Pat Gallagher - entrepreneur, visionary, mentor, friend but perhaps most important of all, a family man.

Pat has also followed in his father’s footsteps and has a successful breeding farm, with a herd of over 200 Aberdeen Angus and Limousin cattle.

He finds pure and utter joy in farming these 600 acres of land in the Kent countryside.

You can take the boy out of Ireland…

23/05/2018 16:05

22

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

Build relationships.

Build value.

Build a better future for your business.

Brendan Morahan has a radical, but practical approach to transforming the construction sector It’s time for construction to be proud of itself. We build society. We are the foundation of economic growth. We bring people together, so they can do business, forge relationships, be creative and secure and – invennt new futures for us all.

All of this needs spaces, places, buildings, streets, railways and cities. Assets that are both practical and inspirational.

YOU make them happen. And you should be proud of what you do.

Brendan Morahan Invennt

Untitled-2 2

At Invennt we celebrate the essential role of good construction businesses. Our mission is to create value through construction – not just for society, but for your business. We work with firms of all sizes, of all specialisms, to cut through the negative views which we all hear day in, day out.

Let’s be honest about it.

Construction isn’t glamorous.

We don’t boast brands that people admire. Our industry, it seems, can’t compete with Apple or Google or Amazon or Dyson.

But why not? I believe we can build construction brands of similar power. Doing that takes collaboration. Integrity. Better ways of working. And, most of all, a new confidence in the good that we have done, are doing, and can do now and into the future.

Cities have never been more populous. Buildings and infrastructure are being transformed by technology.

Digital communications are energising spaces instead of making them less relevant.

Construction is becoming more human, not less.

But, let’s face it, it’s hard to see beyond the day-to-day problems. The low margins.

The high risk. The bad publicity that crowds out the amazing things we’re building.

It’s time to cut through it. At Invennt we work to change your perception of your own business and your future. It’s why there’s a Venn diagram at the heart of our name; we bring people together to reveal strong (and often surprising) relationships and values which can form the foundation of vibrant businesses in construction.

23/05/2018 11:42

Six steps to build a better future for your business We’ve built six steps to forming a strong strategic approach to building your business. Big or small, contractor, architect, engineer, client or consultant. These are steps we can take together right now – even in a tough trading environment.

1

2 Unlock extra cash quickly

Know what you’re doing right, what you’re doing wrong, and how you can do it better

Low margins and high risk mean there’s not much cash about. But, with our help, you can generate extra cash through a range of means. The government’s R&D tax credits are just one of those ways.

We work with you to unlock new funds, so you can invest in your future.

Make sense of the data you’re already collecting and collect new data to reveal your strengths and weaknesses from bids to delivering projects.

We help you get the data, analyse it and provide insights to improve marketing, boost bid success, make operations more effective, mitigate risk, and increase margins.

3 Innovate and make the most of technology Throughout businesses new technologies can add value and cut costs as well as deliver better working practices. Make the most of The Internet of Things, automation, and even Artificial Intelligence. It all makes a difference to the bottom line as well as the way your business is perceived. We help you choose and develop the right technologies for the best outcomes.

4

Forge the right relationships for long-term effectiveness and value Construction is all about relationships: between clients, designers, consultants and contractors, the authorities and the public, the users, neighbours and wider society. That takes a holistic, human approach that starts before a bid and lasts long after the projects are complete.

We have a large network and proven methods to help you develop the right relationships.

5 Procure smarter, bid smarter, win smarter Is your procurement process really focussed on delivering value? You might win bids but are you making the margins that your quality and commitment deserve? You might procure cheaply but are you getting the outcomes you need? Are you bidding for the right projects? Are the contract terms favourable to you or someone else? We use data and market insights to help you make the right decisions, and then ensure you get the best terms so you can grow a long-term successful business.

6

Deliver smarter It is essential that projects are focussed on maximising value: to the client, the designers, the contractors, users and society as a whole. Every project must generate profit. Not just to reward hard work, but to build value for the future.

Build revenue and reputation. Be the brand that stands out. Transform society’s view of construction through quality processes and outcomes.

We help you do that through proven systems that monitor performance, report on progress and identify areas for corrective action.

Build the right strategy A lack of strategy leads to mediocrity or failure. The right strategy delivers strength. It’s the foundation for progress. And strategy can only be forged by understanding needs, strengths, weaknesses, and relationships.

Invennt helps you cut through the noise of day-to-day concerns to think clearly. Thinking is hard when you’re hard-pressed. We do a lot of the thinking for you and with you, so you can see what really matters. That sweet-spot in the Venn diagram of your world.

Our business is based on experience, commitment, and a passion for a better construction sector. So it can be recognised as the engine of our economy. Admired for quality and creativity as well as social responsibility. But which also delivers greater value quickly.

Untitled-2 3

Brendan would like to talk to you about what we can do together to transform your business and make our sector admired by all.

Please call Brendan on 07816 514505 or email at brendan.morahan@invennt.com.

23/05/2018 11:42

24

Building Britain 2018

DUE NORTH Lack of executive is hobbling Northern Irish construction, though housebuilding remains a bright spot

By Pádraig Belton

T

he absence of an executive in Northern Ireland is harming construction firms in pursuing large projects outside Northern Ireland, like off-site construction for Heathrow Airport’s third runway - putting it in danger of missing out on 5,000 new jobs and £5billion worth of wider economic benefits across Northern Ireland, not to mention all-important links between Belfast and Heathrow.

“Across the construction industry, there is a strong and united view that the political impasse locally has gone on for far too long,” says Construction Employers Federation (CEF) managing

page 24-26.indd 24

director John Armstrong.

“With decisions having been put off, some projects stalled, confusion around the expenditure of elements of the capital budget and policy formulation having been drastically curtailed, there is a significant and increasingly harmful lack of governance within Northern Ireland,” he adds.

With the Northern Ireland Executive resolutely collapsed since January 2017, in February Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Prime Minister Theresa May came to Belfast for what May called ‘one final push’ to restore power sharing.

The attempt foundered, and with May’s attention subsequently taken up by Brexit, and Varadkar’s by May

25 referendum on the Eighth Amendment and a possible general election at year’s end, few disagree with DUP leader Arlene Foster’s assessment there is ‘no current prospect’ of restored government in Stormont.

In March, Heathrow executives returned from surveying four sites across Scotland, the Scottish Executive having successfully negotiated the guaranteed location of one off-site logistics hub in Scotland.

The Executive says wherever located, the project will deliver

JOINING FORCES: Prime Minister Theresa May and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar

23/05/2018 10:52

Building Britain 2018

For over 25 years, Toureen Group have been solving complex construction problems for a diverse range of clients.

Our team of experts combine experience and technical knowledge to deliver the most effective solutions for projects.

2

25

• RC FRAMES • GROUNDWORKS • MULTI-STOREY BASEMENTS • DEMOLITION • RETAIL & PETROLEUM FIT - OUT • RECYCLING & WASTE MANAGEMENT • PILING 2017

Toureen Group 25 Cecil Road, Harrow, Middlesex, HA3 5QY

page 24-26.indd 25

t: 0208 424 7999 e: info@toureen.co.uk w: www.toureengroup.co.uk

23/05/2018 11:04

26

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

£17billion in economic benefits and 16,000 jobs to Scotland. Heathrow has committed to spend 60 per cent of its procurement budget outside London. Last year, the airport’s administration added it would seek to build 65 factories.

Meanwhile, “we haven’t even got an executive to meet with them, if they come”, said Unite Northern Ireland regional officer Jackie Pollock.

Belfast, Craigavon, and Ballymena are all in the running to be off-site construction centres for the third Heathrow runway.

On the longlist were six Northern Irish sites: Belfast’s North Foreshore, Craigavon’s Silverwood business park, Belfast International Airport itself, Newtownabbey’s Global Point business park, Limavady’s MJM Marine Shackleton Barracks site, and Michelin’s plant in Ballymena. Michelin closed the plant in April, though East Antrim Borough Council hopes to build a logistics hub on 10 acres it has purchased from the site.

Meanwhile, infrastructure planning involving Northern Irish government agencies is now ‘simply impossible’ because of the 16-month political impasse, which has left many Northern Irish construction firms ‘on a cliff

edge,’ CEF president Ray Hutchinson says.

The hardest hit firms are those which are involved in infrastructure projects requiring political decisions. Infrastructure planning has ground to a halt, said Mr Armstrong.

Infrastructure output fell 5.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2018 compared with the first quarter in 2017, according to a Northern Irish Construction Bulletin which the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) published in April.

Though the decision to pass the 2017/18 Northern Ireland Budget Bill in Westminster gave the Northern Ireland Civil Service certainty to carry on day to day functions of government, says Mr Armstrong, it came seven months into the financial year.

Furthermore, Mr Armstrong added, the decision did ‘nothing to plan for the future nor deal with major infrastructure funding challenges around the Executive’s flagship schemes, the lack of political authority to progress projects through their various approval stages, nor the need to plan capital spending over a multi-year cycle.’

Another indication of the construction slowdown comes from surveyors: Northern Ireland is the only UK region where they

expect to see lower profit margins a year from now. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors released a Northern Ireland Construction and Infrastructure Market Survey in April, which showed Northern Irish construction activity lagged behind any UK region, especially in private industrial activity and public-sector activity.

One bright spot for construction in Northern Ireland, however, lay in house construction, especially in Greater Belfast.

In common with the south of the island, Northern Ireland has a significant shortage of residential property coming on the market, a legacy of slow house construction not keeping up with the rate of household formation in the decade following the 2008 financial crisis.

Estate agent Simon Brien, who represents properties in Belfast and Holywood, said he viewed limited housing supply as a problem amidst strong demand and price increases.

Northern Irish house prices rose six per cent in the first quarter of 2018, the highest price rise of any UK region (and comparable to the 7.3 per cent rise in the south). House demand, though, is susceptible to slowing if the Bank of England raises interest rates later in the year to combat returning inflation.

FLIGHT RISK: Northern Ireland is in danger of missing out on 5,000 jobs associated with Heathrow Airport’s third runway

page 24-26.indd 26

23/05/2018 10:52

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

27

A FEW GOOD MEN As Ground Construction Limited marks 20 years in business, Managing Director Trevor Diviney tells SIOBHÁN BREATNACH about the power of good relationships and plans for the future

T

revor Diviney and Paddy Shanahan joined forces 20 years ago to found Ground Construction Limited.

The fledgling company started with ‘a few men and a couple of machines’ after it was originally set up to carry out groundworks.

In the intervening two decades, however, the firm has successfully diversified and in 2002 the company entered the concrete frame business, which was to be a pinnacle point.

“Once we stepped into that it opened-up a world of opportunities for us,” says Managing Director Trevor Diviney.

“We were working our way up.”

Joking that he was a bit of a ‘jack of all trades’ in those early days, he credits a family ethos and the strong working relationship with his business partner - Tipperary native Paddy Shanahan - as being integral to their success.

“We have a lot of loyal and hard-working staff who have made the GCL story the success it is,” the London Irishman adds.

“You couldn’t do it without them.

From a personal point of view, my two sons have also joined the business.”

The pair had previously worked together but striking out on their own proved to be the best decision they could have made.

An initial order for £80,000 on their first job later grew to £250,000 and the momentum continued to build from there.

Ground Construction Ltd, now based in Welwyn Garden City, first

began trading in May 1998.

Have reached its 20-year trading mark, both of its original founders are still working full-time in the business.

Turning over £50million by the time it had marked its 10th anniversary - a figure that has now doubled to £100million 2004 marked the firm’s first £2million project.

“We started trading as GCL as the name Ground Construction lead people to believe we only carried out groundwork packages,” Diviney says. “Our combined package offering saw the business grow rapidly. By 2008 the business was turning over £50million.”

Apart from Civil Engineering, Groundworks and Concrete Frames, GCL’s owners have also developed a number of other businesses including tower crane hire (TCUK), skip hire and waste recycling (Ground Skips and Ground Waste Recycling) and pre-cast concrete production (PCSS).

“I don’t think we could have expected it to go so good,” Diviney says.

Having established itself as one of the top 10 concrete frame business in the UK, GCL projects have included Lords Cricket Ground, London City Island, Royal Arsenal, Greenwich Millennium Village, Finchley Memorial Hospital to name but a few.

Concentrating in the London M25 area and the home counties, GCL received the Building Britain Award

at the 2017 Irish Post Awards to recognise its outstanding contribution to the industry.

The company received two ROSPA awards in the last two years - the most sought after accolades for health and safety – followed by the Investors in People Gold Standard last year.

“It’s something which the business is very proud of,” Diviney says.

In general, Diviney adds, uncertainty over Brexit has led to somewhat of a slow-down across the industry in Quarter 1.

“The opportunities are there but the planning permission can be slow,” he says adding that there are big-scale projects ready to go so “hopefully it’s a shortterm blip”.

With Diviney focused on the commercial aspects of the business and partner Paddy Shanahan on the construction side, this dynamic duo have carved out a unique selling point for their company.

Technology plays an important role in the growth of the firm, which today operates out of a 15,000 square foot office with 11 different departments including centres for training, support and infrastructure where projects range from between £15-50million.

“It’s a whole different way of approaching it,” Diviney says of the company that cites advancement, reinvestment and progress as its key drivers.

A Board of Directors was set up four years ago to bring talented individuals in their 30s and 40s into the fold with a view to creating succession within the business.

“The magic £100million was a target, which we achieved in 2017,” Diviney says adding that future plans include developing both the core and ancillary businesses.

Born in Dollis Hill the son of a Donegal mother and a wellknown Kilburn publican father from Wexford - who sadly passed away in recent months - Trevor Diviney grew up surrounded by people working in construction.

Born in Ireland Paddy Shanahan was among the wave of Irish who came over to England in the early 80s with a young family in tow.

Both shared a desire to innovate and become pioneers in developing new systems in their industry.

“We had worked together before and had the faith to strike out on our own,” Diviney says.

“We had nothing to lose.”

“We’ve never fallen out on those 20 years, which takes some doing. It’s down to a degree of respect between us.

“You have to listen to someone else’s opinion as well as your own.

“We’ve never fallen out over a difference of opinion.

There’s a mutual respect.”

Lords Cricket Ground is one of GCL’s projects, above company founders Paddy Shanahan and Trevor Diviney at the 2017 Irish Post Awards

page 27.indd 27

23/05/2018 12:23

28

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

CUTTING EDGE Three of Ward and Burke’s brightest young talents tell SIOBHÁN BREATNACH how technology, research and design is helping deliver some of Britain’s biggest construction projects

“W

e’re always trying to push the boundaries of what’s possible and how to do things, which is exciting,” says Ronan Royston, a Civil Engineer with Ward & Burke.

Currently undertaking a Geotech PhD in Oxford, the Galway native has worked on site and in the design office with the construction company, which has established itself as one of Ireland’s principal Civil and MEICA Engineering Contractors since its formation in 2001.

The company expects to exceed €200million in turnover this year across the board having invested €40m over the last three years in plant, equipment and facilities.

Education has been the other big investment the company has made.

This year, 15 Oxford engineering students and graduates will be working on sites around Britain – giving them the opportunity to learn how things are built so they can apply their capabilities to improving systems of the future.

Oxford graduate Bryn Phillips is currently designing a section of Tideway at Putney having been taken on as an intern with the firm a few summers ago in Blackpool.

“It was a baptism of fire up there, you were thrown in at the deep end and it was sink or swim, which was quite good fun.

I really enjoyed it,” he says.

He is now heading back to Oxford to undertake a Research Masters in September.

“The company are funding me in a Research Masters looking at geo-technical soil structural interface to improve our work in the future,” he says describing how Ward & Burke place a keen emphasis on investment in its people, innovation and training.

“The industry standards that are in place aren’t necessarily

page 28-29.indd 28

geared towards what we want to do,” he adds.

“The existing research isn’t necessarily there to justify how we do things. We’re looking at how to improve that so that we can improve our efficiency of design and construction even further.”

A team mentality at Ward & Burke, he says, has been a driving force in his work.

“The biggest thing for me, and what I do, is the build and design mentality,” he says.

“Whatever we’re designing we have to be able to build and whatever we build we have to be able to design. All of our design comes from thinking about how you would actually build it first and working backwards from that.”

Ward & Burke was set up in 2001 by Michael Ward, who had returned to Ireland after eight years in London; Padraig Burke who had also spent five years in the UK and Robert Ward who had been based in the US. All three are civil engineers who had worked for contractors who designed their own work for construction.

Around 18 months ago they bought Response Engineering, an Irish MEICA organisation who had worked alongside them for 15 years in Ireland.

The move allowed the company to deliver a complete water treatment plant in-house including process, mechanical, electrical and control design.

Mechanical Engineer Shane Buckley is now building a MEICA team in the south east of England.

Originally from Killarney, he had previously worked in Australia, and spent time working in Southampton before joining Ward & Burke.

He was the design manager in Ireland until January of this year when he moved to Britain to become MEICA Manager UK.

“Traditionally Ward & Burke were a Civil Engineering company, now we deliver the full package, process, design, mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, control and automation,” he says.

“I’m trying to develop that side of the business and deliver it efficiently.”

An Irish work ethic coupled with training and education, he says, has been key to the company’s success.

Breaking down contractual barriers and delivering work efficiently are also the biggest selling points of the company.

“We get huge respect, the Irish working in the industry over here,” he says.

“That comes from Ward & Burke’s hard-working nature as well and their ability to break down the contractual barriers that exist in the UK and overcome them.

“Clients come to us for our efficiency to deliver work and out technical ability. That’s the bottom line really.”

Buckley is currently working on the Birmingham Resilience Project.

“Birmingham has only one source of drinking water - it’s 112 years old. We’re the MEICA delivery partner on that job - delivering all the mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and control for that job for the new drinking water supply to Birmingham City.

“It’s a £9million job, the second largest legacy scheme in the water industry at the moment. Thames Tideway, which we are also involved with, that’s number one.”

Working across Ireland and the UK, Ward & Burke specialises in the design, manufacture, supply, installation, operation and maintenance of water and wastewater infrastructure.

Bridge and road construction as well as rehabilitation works also play an important part in the business.

Its head office is in Galway but there are also bases in Ohio, USA and Ontario, Canada where the design and construction of shafts and caissons for the utilities sector is a main focus.

A cutting-edge approach to technology, research and delivery sets this company apart.

Equally important, however, is the role of apprentices and young site labour.

“Good training leads to good people who make good workers who have good careers and job satisfaction,” company founder Michael Ward says.

“Out of 800 people working this week there is no one off sick or injured. This is how it should be. Local decision-making breeds accountability, which sets a good standard.”

In Britain, the group has offices in Buckinghamshire and Leeds serving local water companies, while its workforce can move

23/05/2018 14:40

Irish Post THE

29

Building Britain 2018

IRISH POST ADVERTORIAL

between the wider locations in Canada, Ireland and the US. “The international aspect brings some great pollination of ideas,” Ward says.

“When workers move they get a first-hand feel for the work culture and local ethic.

“They also bring their own ideas and get them tested. When you go through the UK system you get a good grounding in doing things properly.

“It’s all about making the machines work more efficiently.

Planning and design and assembly are critical.”

Ward is also passionate about encouraging more woman into Civil Engineering.

“Schools but most of all parents need to support their daughters in getting into engineering, building and construction careers,” he says.

“Heavy Civil Engineering is a rewarding career that needs more women. We want to champion a way of working where the entire workforce has a voice and a stake in the

page 28-29.indd 29

success of each project.

“A lot is written about this but unless you have single in-house multi-trade group approach it doesn’t happen in reality.”

Civil Engineer Ronan Royston qualified from the University of Limerick and undertook a placement with Ward & Burke when he was a student, taking on a full-time role in design when he graduated.

Wanting to be involved in more ‘hands on work’ he moved to London four year ago and is finishing up a PHD – fully funded by the company - at Oxford this autumn.

“My main focus is on the geotechnical side of things, my

PHD is on soil structure interaction. I’m very interested in the science behind why things happen,” he says.

“We want to give the information to the people who need it straight away,” he adds.

“I developed a system that tracks the movement of the caissons as they’re sinking and sends real time feedback over a tablet to the excavator drivers and engineers on site.

“They can actually see how the soil level was developing on the structure, how the structure is moving as they sank and respond to that straightaway, rather than guessing or hoping.

“There can be a fear about

new ideas and technology but when they see it working it’s just very rewarding to think you have a direct impact on how a big project is developed.”

The Irishman, who is also working on the Anchorsholme project, says Ward & Burke is all about giving young people the opportunity to develop and grow.

“Personally, the PHD for me, but also the responsibility I have in my day to day job,” he says when describing what he values most about his role in the company.

“Ward & Burke trust what I can do and that’s the ethos of development. Everyone has an equal say and respected no matter where they are.”

23/05/2018 14:39

30

Building Britain 2018

HELP NEEDED Skills shortage in Britain means salaries are leaping for Irish construction professionals page 30-32.indd 30

23/05/2018 10:47

Irish Post THE

31

Building Britain 2018

Through Teamwork We Achieve The Extraordinary Highways

Tunnelling

Rail

Trades and Labour

Aviation

Utilities

Nuclear

Safety Critical and Non-Critical Sta www.dannysullivan.co.uk

Kylemore Services Ltd Specialist Building Services Kylemore Services leading the way in understanding the needs of clients to achieve the best possible engineering solutions on major projects in London and the South East.

We operate in a wide range of sectors including hotel and leisure, residential, commercial and transportation.

Quality is everything. Without quality, everything means nothing.

www.kylemore.co.uk Building Britain template.indd 31

Client satisfaction is the measure of our success and we aim to provide a first-class service, at the right price and on time.

Address: Kylemore Services Limited Stanmore Business & Innovation Centre Stanmore Place, Honeypot Lane Stanmore HA7 1GB Contact: Michael Quinn or Eamon Lynam michaelq@kylemore.co.uk eamonl@kylemore.co.uk

TEL: 020 8795 1083

23/05/2018 10:18

32

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

By Pádraig Belton

A

massive skills shortage in the UK, especially in London, is pushing demand high for Irish construction and engineering professionals, and causing salaries to leap, say recruiting firms.

The salary for a quantity surveyor leapt year-on-year by about 25 per cent, for example, says Derek Byrne from Sonas Recruitment, based in Dublin and London.

Britain, and London in particular, is now the most popular destination for Irish construction and engineering professionals, says Mr Byrne.

The skills shortage is especially keen for roles requiring between five and 15 years of experiences, he adds.

But it trickles down to other levels, too.

Two-thirds of UK small and midsized construction businesses are struggling to hire bricklayers, a key trade in housebuilding, says Brian Berry, chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders.

Carpenters are also in meagre supply, the Federation said in a January report which said the skills shortage had hit its worst level on record.

Demand for skilled plumbers, electricians, and plasterers also outstrips supply, says the Federation, which threatens the UK Government’s plan to construct 300,000 homes annually in England alone.

Among UK construction firms, ‘78 per cent of employers told us their top challenge when recruiting is a shortage of suitable applicants,’ says Richard Gelder, director of UK construction and property at the large British recruiting firm Hays.

Within UK construction industry, there are ‘acute skills shortages’ in a wide

page 30-32.indd 32

range of seasoned workers— project engineers, senior contract managers, project managers, contract quantity surveyors, and technicians who work in building information modelling and with the Autodesk Revit platform, Mr Gelder says.

Also, those who are highly skilled are not terribly keen to move jobs, he adds.

Only 21 per cent of construction professionals say they have any plan to leave their current job in the next three years, says Hays’ UK Salary and Recruiting Trends 2018 guide.

And as 79 per cent of seasoned professionals are not applying for other work, the result is to decrease further the pool of applicants for more skilled positions, says Mr Gelder.

Skilled workers also are increasingly being tempted overseas, further feeding the skills shortage.

Uncertainty about Brexit and the resurgence of the building market in Ireland also is leading to ‘a slight increase’ in UK construction and property professionals looking for roles in Ireland, says Ferdia White, senior manager for

construction and property at Hays Ireland.

With competition from Ireland shrinking further the number of British applicants going for building roles in the UK, also pulling talent away are massive Asian projects, such as airport expansions in Hong Kong, and tunnelling and infrastructure projects in Singapore, and a need for skilled professionals in Qatar.

The shortage of construction professionals is a global issue, with Ireland, the UK, the US, Canada, and Australia all competing for the same skilled workers, says Paraic Kelly of ConstructionJobs.ie.

From the perspective of skilled tradespeople, says the Federation of Master Builders, the skills gap is pushing wages up sharply.

From that of construction companies, increased wages coupled with an increase in the cost of materials is a sharp blow, though.

For Irish building professionals with increased opportunities to work at home, it normally is the prospect of pay rises which them to pursue work in Britain, observes Mr Byrne.

And in the southeast of the UK, and especially London, ‘Irish white-collar workers are a dominant force on sites’, Mr Kelly adds.

23/05/2018 10:47

Irish Post THE

33

Building Britain 2018

Building Contractors & Civil Engineers

O’HALLOREN & O’BRIEN LTD Tel: 020 8337 5527 Celebrating

in business www.ohob.com

Commercial Insurance Brokers Construction & Property Industry Specialists “Service when it’s needed most”

• Liability • Fleet • Plant

• Contractors All Risks • Property Owners • Commercial combined

• Professional Indemnity • Performance Bonds • & more

Northern Office – 0161 928 4444 Southern Office – 01923 438 008 Welsh Office – 01873 859700

www.ukandi.com We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Reference Number 760190. UK & Ireland Insurance Services Ltd is registered as a company in England and Wales No.02793327 Registered office: 2 Anchorage Court, Caspian Road, Atlantic Street, Broadheath, Altrincham, Cheshire, WA14 5HH – https://register.fca.org.uk/

Building Britain template.indd 33

23/05/2018 10:20

34

Building Britain 2018

BREXIT BRITAIN BECKONS PĂ DRAIG BELTON reports on the opportunities for Irish tech firms from UK construction penny pinching

page 34-35.indd 34

23/05/2018 17:10

Building Britain 2018

D

UBLIN-BASED tech firms increasingly are boarding the flight to British building sites.

It is a story that bridges Brexit with the rise, in acres of former warehouse wasteland beside the Liffey, of what have variously been called ‘Silicon Docks’ and the ‘Cel-Tech Tiger’.

First the 12.5 per cent Irish corporate tax rate attracted the Googles, Facebooks, and Twitters, with 80 per cent of global tech companies now having a Dublin base.

It breathed new life to the buildings around Grand Canal Dock, many of them vacant after the financial crisis hit Ireland.

Suddenly, 1,200 tech start-ups had a place to live, and benefit from the presence of seasoned heavy-hitters, not to mention the chance to sell new tech to eBay. And, as they’ve grown, into the British market.

Brexit has suddenly created opportunities for young Irish tech firms in British construction, says John Hunt, Enterprise Ireland’s construction market advisor in the UK. Firms like Eoin Leonard’s i3PT, which uses tech to monitor building standards and construction quality.

Or UrbanVolt, which sells businesses ‘light as a service’, and has received €30 million in investment from a Swiss green private equity outfit, and glowing coverage from The New York Times.

Both are based in Dublin, and found themselves lean, hungry, and ready to scale when Brexit happened next door.

BREXIT BATTERS BRITISH BUILDING...

For a sense of the problem, UK construction began 2018 not simply in any slump, but with the most sustained falls in quarterly output in five years.

Behind this is Brexit making businesses reluctant to commit to new projects, with companies uncertain how many of their staff they will need to shift internationally to preserve access to the EU market.

Declining sterling, meanwhile, has caused prices for materials to increase at one of the sharpest rates since early 2011, says London-based research firm IHS Markit.

Altogether the result has been the longest period of decline since the third quarter of 2012, according to Office of National Statistics data — and three consecutive quarters of output

page 34-35.indd 35

contraction in the sector.

House building nonetheless is a bright spot, with a housing shortage and government help to buy incentives increasing the value of private housing construction by £403 million in the fourth quarter of 2017.

A fragmented British construction sector has for some time hindered the spread of new technology, says Mr Hunt.

“In aviation or the auto sector, you’ve got some big players, and not many of them,” he says.

“In construction, you’ve got a very fragmented industry - 2.8 to 3 million companies, 80 per cent of them micro or small.

It has all made UK construction prime for disruption, says Mr Hunt.

Just as Brexit calls time on a flexible EU labour model which he says has masked a ‘generation of underinvestment in the industry’.

LET THERE BE LIGHT AS A SERVICE One Dublin-based firm has started offering British commercial sites cheaper lighting — by moving lighting to a subscription model.

“No one cares about light as long as it’s working - you need light, not the lights. We deliver the light,” says Edel Kennedy from UrbanVolt.

What if you went to businesses, offered to upgrade their existing florescent lights with more efficient LED units, and in place of their existing lighting bill offered them to pay a lower monthly service bill instead?

Three friends asked this question over ‘a quiet pint one long winter evening in 2014’, they say.

By the end of the conversation, Kevin Maughan, Declan Barrett, and Graham Deane were cofounders.

In UrbanVolt’s model, they wait five years to get their initial investment back, enabling them to keep their monthly costs low.

The low

ENTREPRENEUR: Eoin Leonard

35

INNOVATION: UrbanVolt headquarters in Dublin

interest rate economic environment has meant there are private equity firms aplenty sitting on record amounts of dry powder happy to back the initial infrastructure costs in exchange for returns.

The model has worked: UrbanVolt took on its 100th project last year, said Miss Kennedy.

Meanwhile it launched solar-asa-service at the end of last year, and next will introduce battery technology as a service, she says.

“The technology is now good enough; if you were to try this five years ago, it wasn’t good enough, and was also far too expensive,” says Miss Kennedy.

GETTING STARTED AND PUTTING UP A FACADE Techrete, based in Stephenstown Industrial Park in Balbriggan, came up with the idea of precasting concrete facades at a central site, with a robotic concrete placing system and an automated panel-handling system.

It’s subsequently acquired a UK base in Brigg, in North Lincolnshire. The Brigg site harvests rainwater, to be nearly selfsufficient as regards industrial water usage, and has photovoltaic arrays on the roof to reduce its electricity demands on the grid.

Last year, Techcrete’s work on the Victoria Gate Project in Leeds City Centre won an award

in the Irish Concrete Awards. One article in Construction News says its client list read like a Who’s Who of Britain’s principle contractors.

Meanwhile, Initiafy simplifies the training and induction process for new construction workers, allowing them to complete these processes beforehand on their mobiles, ‘off site at a time of their choosing’, says Mr Hunt. ‘It doesn’t have to be 6am on a Monday morning, it could be completed on the Sunday before,’ he says.

Initiafy now works with Balfour Beatty, infrastructure company Amey, and ‘five of the top 20 construction companies in the UK,’ the Irish startup says.

And Mr Leonard’s i3PT offers construction companies a software dashboard to give them ‘more peace of mind and visibility, through the risks of construction and to ensure things have been done correctly’, Mr Hunt says.

On April 23, Ernst and Young named Mr Leonard one of the 24 finalists for their Entrepreneur of the Year.

THE IRISH TECH TO BUILD BRITAIN Daniel O’Connell’s 1856 dictum, that England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity, seems to belong to an era of nationalist striving long past us.

But penny-pinching in the UK construction sector has offered opportunity for Irish tech firms with solutions that might help a pressed industry do more with less.

In the 1950s, UK building sites provided a destination for many of the 50,000 people leaving Ireland each year.

With nearly half of 24-to-34 year olds having attended higher education, the second highest rate in the EU, it is more likely to be tech startups, rather than brickies, departing Silicon Docks and going to the building sites of Brexit Britain.

23/05/2018 10:45

36

Building Britain 2018

Irish Post THE

Power to the people - Out & Ab o The London Irish Construction Network held a successful evening at the House of Commons in April.

The gathering, sponsored by Evans Mockler, Galliard and Ardent Tide, was an opportunity for members to meet and discuss the latest news and views within the industry.

Conor McGinn MP for St Helens North and Stephen Pound, MP for Ealing North were among those who attended.

TLICN hosted its summer event on May 22 at The Rotunda Bar & Restaurant, Kings Place.

On September 27 Mike Brown, Commissioner for TFL, will be the keynote speaker at TLICN’s autumn gathering.

page 36-37.indd 36

23/05/2018 10:24

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

37

b out with TLICN

page 36-37.indd 37

23/05/2018 14:45

38

Building Britain 2018

Building Britain template.indd 38

Irish Post THE

23/05/2018 16:23

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

39

When Heathrow is the Trip to Work Rise of the Hi-Brit commuters

By Pádraig Belton

T

he rise of the gig economy — encompassing around five million people in the UK, and 44,000 in Ireland — has led to more people cybercommuting from their nearest coffee shop.

But at the same time, the expansion of low-cost air travel has opened up a very different journey: that of the hypercommuter.

Hypercommuting is particularly common In the construction sector: one where Irish professionals are skilled and sought after, but the jobs are much more often in Britain.

“There is more work picking back up in Ireland again, but a lot of these guys are used to the commute, and they like having that time [travelling], so they stay,” says Ross Hilliard, construction manager at Irish-owned civil engineering contractor Red Parrot Limited.

After years of minimal building following the financial crisis, Ireland faces shortages of both offices and homes.

There is a monthly ritual at the Irish Times, when staff gather to count the cranes visible from the seventh floor of the newspaper”s offices on Dublin”s Tara Street.

On April 1 there were 71 cranes over the city. This was down from 80 in December.

Irish office construction has started to level off. (The office vacancy rate, at 6 per cent, is still flirting with its all-time low, so this may not be a good thing.)

Meanwhile, Irish housing construction hasn”t even got going. Says Investec chief economist Philip O”Sullivan, 21,500

HYPERCOMMUTER: Ross Hillard

homes will be completed in Ireland this year and 24,000 in 2019, painfully below the 30,000 to 50,000 new households forming each year.

By contrast, England alone is currently building 217,000 new homes annually. And even if this represented a 3 per cent decrease from a year before, the construction industry in Great Britain still was a £12.7 billion sector in February 2018.

For many Irish constructions professionals, ones who “have been working 25 years or so in construction”, says Mr Hilliard, HOME FROM HOME: Heathrow Airport

page 39.indd 39

“they would have worked on some big schemes back in Ireland like the Limerick bypass or the gas lines, and now there is more work back in the UK, and their mates are there, so they come too.”

“The vast majority “usually do two to three weeks on, and a week or so back in Ireland. They need the hours, and they are always keen to get more work, stay on longer, says Mr Hilliard, who himself is from Kerry, and recently has been engaged in helping build a major Aberdeen bypass due to open in summer 2018.

The 19 daily return flights between Dublin and London make it the second busiest air route in the world, says Robin Kiely, Ryanair head of communications.

He says low fares and highfrequently services have allowed people in both Ireland and the UK to commute between the two countries.

More traditional forms of travel still persist, too. One Sligo-based construction worker, Matt Scanlon, monthly takes a 17-hour journey by boat and train to work in London, while his girlfriend and young daughter remain at home.

With the British construction sector dwarfing that in Ireland at the moment, hypercommuting

cuts across levels of skill, age, and income.

“The younger generation are happier to come over “on spec” — they will get a small job for a few days and look around for more work, or come over and stay with people they know who are already working here, and crash in their room,” says Mr Hilliard.

Contractors, in turn, “find men almost exclusively through word of mouth - someone will know someone, because everyone knows everyone.”

David Meredith, a researcher at Teagasc in Dublin, says the “transnational household” is a new phenomenon in Ireland.

But for those with mortgages in Ireland and children in school, emigration becomes difficult, and hypercommuting more feasible.

And he experience, Mr Hilliard adds, is not altogether a bad one.

While “many, if not most, have children at home”, and “they miss their families,” there can be elements of adventure and camaraderie, too.

“There is a lot of social activity” he says. “They will have “meetings” that go on “into the evening” and won”t be held in the office, but usually in a “meeting place” (ie., the pub.)”

23/05/2018 10:43

The rising stars of industry Founded in 2009, in the wake of the banking crisis, London-based DRS Bond Management Ltd (DRS) has grown rapidly to become the UK’s leading independent surety specialist.

DRS covers the whole of the UK, Ireland and international companies and focuses predominantly on the Construction, Property Development and Waste sectors.

DRS arranges surety solutions for a vast range of bonding needs, including: ■ Performance Bonds ■ Retention Bonds ■ Advance Payment Bonds ■ Highways Bonds ■ National House Building Council (NHBC) Bonds ■ Bid Bonds ■ Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) Bonds ■ Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Bonds ■ Restoration Bonds Most guarantees are still arranged within the banking sector. This typically ties up 100 per cent of the bond sum as collateral. Bank bonds are typically ‘on demand’, regardless of the bond wording, which is an unacceptable commercial risk.

Bonds issued by the banks may also be difficult to release. Bank rates for guarantees may be impacted by other bank debt. With increasing regulatory pressure, banks are becoming restrictive in their acceptance of new facilities. In contrast, the surety market is vibrant and dynamic, with a growing appetite.

Surety is transformational: releasing working capital, alleviating the need for liquid security and reducing strain on banking facilities. The surety market’s principal advantages compared to the banks are: ■ Zero collateral starting point, over 98% of DRS’ bonds are issued without cash collateral ■ DRS typically negotiates on default bond wordings, with clear trigger events, that are fully explained to all parties and protect against iniquitous claims ■ On demand bonds can be issued where appropriate ■ Superior release of liability advice ■ Rates are competitive with banks, often cheaper ■ Bonds issued by banks are hard liabilities ■ Bonds issued by sureties are contingent liabilities i.e. ‘off balance sheet’

page 11.indd 11

As we only utilise sureties with investment grade ratings (minimum ‘A-‘ Standard & Poor’s or equivalent), DRS negates counter party risk for project funders.

DRS is committed to unravelling misinformation around surety, allowing clients, banks, employers and their agents to become more aware of the benefits of surety. Historically, outside of the banks, surety has been sold through the insurance market. This causes confusion and misunderstanding as there is no risk transfer. DRS listens closely to our clients and regularly holds events for leaders of British and Irish industry. DRS publish guides on bonding, finance and governance best practice to support stable surety facilities.

DRS is prominent in identifying the rising stars of industry, both within and outside our organisation, to drive up standards of expertise. Historically, there has been no structured or recognised training programme for surety practitioners. In conjunction with the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators and the Association of Corporate Treasurers, DRS has developed chartered training which runs simultaneously with a professional development programme.

DRS is committed to the exponential growth and application of surety. Our team undertake a detailed discovery of clients’ past, current and future requirements and apply that knowledge through a thorough examination of the surety market, before arranging bonds in an accurate and timely manner. We ensure that our clients avoid disruption to their surety facilities and discuss all options to enhance this stability where additional capacity is required.

DRS is committed to growth, not only of our own top and bottom line but that of the wider UK and Irish economy. We will make surety accessible to everyone who needs it on both sides of the Irish Sea and the Irish border.

Partner message

Meet the people behind DRS Bond Management Ltd CHRIS DAVIES Chris Davies is a founding director of DRS Bond Management and is responsible for the strategic account management of DRS’ surety relationships. With over 30 years of industry experience at leading insurance brokers, including Aon and legacy companies of Arthur J Gallagher and Bluefin, Chris has dealt with the arrangement of surety facilities for clients in all industry sectors throughout his career. An exceptional broker, Chris leverages DRS’ senior relationships with the leading investment grade sureties operating in the UK and Ireland.

FIONA RECKER Fiona Recker is a founding director of DRS Bond Management and is responsible for the strategic account management of DRS’ client relationships.

Fiona has previously held various senior statutory positions within publicly quoted companies, with specific and deep experience of managing their sophisticated bonding requirements, as well as being involved in developing corporate structure, financial restructure and indemnity structure.

Prior to establishing DRS Bond Management, Fiona held positions at group head office for Compagnie Financière Richemont SA, St Ives plc, Anglo American plc, Kingfisher plc, Chesterton International plc and Trafalgar House plc.

03/11/2017 17:36

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

BRANCHING OUT W hen Irishman Gerry Keany founded Cara Stationery in 1996, he couldn’t have predicted the technology revolution that was to come.

Supplying Britain’s construction industry for the last 22 years, the firm has embraced new directions in its product offerings to keep up with the demands of an everchanging market. Keany describes how the paperless office and advances in technology is now a reality in many sectors.

furniture fit service – recently working with a major construction client moving into new head offices.

“Our in-house design team came up with plans to maximise the space available and worked closely with the company directors so that their vision was realised on time and within budget,” says Keany.

Successes like this, Keany adds, are all down to the experienced Cara team many of whom have been with him from the start.

FURNITURE FIT OUT One of the innovative ways in which Cara is adapting to a changing environment is by offering a complete

GOLF BALLS TO BARRY’S TEA Other areas which would have been considered out of the ordinary for stationery firms two decades ago include promotional products, golf merchandise, on-site shredding and catering products.

These are now leading areas of growth for Cara.

Recently the firm supplied the golf goody bags for the annual Donegal Charity Golf day where Keany met his hero, golfer Paul McGinley, whose parents hail from Rathmullan.

“Requests for Barry’s Tea also increased so much so that it’s now

ADDING VALUE: Gerry Keany

41

As a go-to supplier to the construction industry, Cara Stationery’s GERRY KEANY describes how the rise of the paperless office had led to a business evolution in the catalogue too,” Keany adds.

LOYALTY IN THE INDUSTRY Over 80 per cent of Cara’s clients are in the construction industry including firms such as Ballymore, Kelly Communications, Reddingtons and O’Donovan.

Keany says he has long been impressed by the time and effort people in the construction sector give to charity and fundraising efforts - and not just for construction charities.

“Jacqui O’Donovan, for example, is chairman of the St Patrick’s Day Ball committee, is a trustee of ICAP and is a partner with the Metropolitan Police Cycle Safety Team,” he says.

“Time and again you see people from construction firms supporting, sponsoring or organising events and not forgetting their roots and people less fortunate than themselves.”

Cara has also just completed a four-year sponsorship term of the London GAA Cup Competitions, while Keany is on the committee organising the Irish Charity Race night at

Windsor Racecourse on June 4.

All funds raised at the event will go to the Aisling Return to Ireland charity. Last year’s effort when over £27,000.

THE FUTURE After a period of slowdown due to uncertainty following the Brexit vote, Cara’s construction clients are now ramping up activity on major projects like Battersea, Hinkley Point, Heathrow and HS2.

Cara has added new vans to its fleet as well as taking on additional staff to ensure high standards continue into the future.

Cara is also expanding its technical department so that clients can research new products or services.

A number of clients recently celebrated 20th, 30th and in some cases 50th anniversaries and used Cara’s services to ensure these milestones were celebrated both from a staff and external PR point of view.

“Cara will continue to seek out new areas where we can bring added value to the relationships with our clients,” Keany says.

• SITE EQUIPMENT & TOOLS • ROAD & TRAFFIC PRODUCTS • EMERGENCY RESPONSE, SIGNAGE & SPILL CONTROL • CLEANING & HYGIENE • TETHERED TOOLS • ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES & CATERING SUPPLIES • PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT • PROTECTIVE CLOTHING

Eugene Harrington Marketing Units 9&10, Greenlea Parl Industrial Estate, Prince George’s Road, London SW19 2JD

0208 640 7621 sales@ehmltd.co.uk www.ehmltd.co.uk

page 41.indd 41

TM

23/05/2018 12:00

42

Irish Post THE

Building Britain 2018

Out of office with…

Donagh O’Sullivan, Chief Executive, Galliard Homes

F

rom Cullen, Co. Cork, Donagh O’Sullivan is a Chartered Civil Engineer and has lived and worked in the UK since graduating from University College Cork in 1990.

He joined Galliard in 2001 following 10 years of major British contracting experience preceding his Galliard career.

He initially worked in the construction part of the business, was appointed Managing Director in 2012 and subsequently to the position of Galliard Group CEO in 2017.

Galliard currently has 44 sites in development, constructing over 8,000 apartments, two hotels and 600,000sqft of commercial space with a total GDV of £4.7billion.

Donagh represents the business on external industry bodies, serves as a Board Director of Barretstown in Co. Kildare - part of the global charity the Serious Fun Children’s’ Network and is part of the Ambassador’s group with the London-based Irish-focused charity Immigrant Counselling and Psychotherapy (ICAP).

DESCRIBE YOUR TYPICAL DAY I’m up at 5.45am to feed Rosie, my two-year-old daughter, her porridge at 6.30am before leaving for the office. On the journey I get a chance to read a paper and start dealing with the email traffic. My time is split between the office in Loughton, visiting Galliard sites under construction, looking at potential new opportunities and meetings around London with our various advisors, funders and JV partners. Up until May 2016 it wasn’t unusual for me to spend, three evenings a week at work or business networking related events, but since Rosie was born I’ve changed that part of my life. I now get home to put her to bed most evenings.

sons, and my parents Timmy Joe and Brenda had a petrol station, and a coach hire business. So young lads could certainly clean buses and work the petrol pump!

My first paid job was driving a bread delivery van in the summer holidays from university for Keating’s Bakery in Kanturk.

WHAT MOTIVATES YOU? Always trying to do my best for family, friends and colleagues. In my circle of influence, I am in a privileged position where, decisions I make and actions I take, can have a wide affect. I aim to always make that positive.

WHAT PERSON HAS INFLUENCED YOU MOST? My Dad, I learned so much about business and family from him. His canny business brain facilitated successfully raising a large family in rural Ireland. I saw his charitable heart with discreet acts of kindness - helping out neighbours who might not be so lucky. I have an indelible image in my mind’s eye of him giving Mom a hug and a kiss every morning after breakfast as he left the house. In strength there can be gentleness – that was a powerful moral model for me.

WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE GROWING UP? My earliest memory of ambition as a child growing up in Cullen Co. Cork, was to be President of America or The Pope – so no issues with self-belief there!

WHERE DO YOU LIVE AND WHAT ARE THE BEST AND WORST THINGS ABOUT THAT PLACE? I live in Marylebone in London.

Regent’s Park is wonderful and my favourite part of the neighbourhood. As for worst – there isn’t any! As my wife Francesca would confirm, I don’t do negative.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST JOB? From a very early age, certainly less than 10, I like all of my brothers before and after me, helped out in the family business.

I was fourth in a family of seven

WHERE’S YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE IN IRELAND? There are many, but today it would probably be the Hotel Europe in Kerry. I’ve lots of lovely memories of family events there

page 42.indd 42

ROYAL VISIT: Donagh O’Sullivan meets Prince William on site

BEST LESSON LIFE HAS TAUGHT YOU? Don’t have regrets, learn and move forward.

IS IT OK TO LIE? No. ARE YOU A MORNING PERSON OR A NIGHT OWL? Morning person certainly!

WHAT’S BEEN THE BEST DECADE OF YOUR LIFE SO FAR AND WHY? My 40s, I met and married my wife Fran and our Rosie was born. in recent years and the people are so welcoming in the most perfect of settings by the lakes of Killarney.

IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING IN YOUR LIFE, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Nothing. I don’t dwell on negatives – of course like everyone else, if given a chance, I might make some different decisions – but we learn more from the mistakes that we make, than from the things we get right.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE BUILDING? The National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. I am not a fan of most modern art, I appreciate that it does mean a great deal to many but it isn’t for me. But the National, with all of the works 100 to 1,000 plus years old does it for me. In a time of seemingly endless technological advance, I am ever fascinated with the talent of old masters, artists that created stunning paintings, many in a time when they had to make all of their own materials. A contemplative stroll through the halls of the National Gallery, even for a short time, never disappoints.

WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON TO TEXT YOU? My brother Micheal who lives in New York, with a photo of my nine year old niece Alice getting her Green Belt at her Taekwondo class.

WHAT MAKES YOU ANGRY? Very little – I can however be impatient and stubborn!

BIGGEST GOAL FOR THE NEXT 12 MONTHS? Keep all of the balls in the air!

WHO IS THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE? My wife Francesca, who is as private as I am outgoing, so I will leave it there.

23/05/2018 10:41

TOWERGATE INSURANCE BROKERS

LATENT DEFECTS INSURANCE There are often faults and defects caused by failures in design, workmanship or materials throughout the construction process that may not be detected for many years after the completion date. These defects can be extremely expensive to rectify however, Latent Defects Insurance can help provide protection to home owners.

At Towergate Insurance Brokers, we are a one stop shop for all your Latent Defect Insurance and site requirements. A dedicated specialist will be on hand to review each project from start to finish. We help to manage the technical relationship between your site manager and the provider’s technical team.

In addition, we will be the initial point of contact in the event of a claim throughout the duration of the policy.

For more information, please contact:

Ewan Vassallo, Business Development Executive on 0207 398 2059 or 07483 141 100 or email ewan.vassallo@towergate.co.uk

Towergate Insurance Brokers is a trading name of Towergate Underwriting Group Limited. Registered in England No.4043759.

Registered Address: Towergate House, Eclipse Park, Sittingbourne Road, Maidstone, Kent ME14 3EN. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

Untitled-2 1

24/05/2018 14:26

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

THE CAREY GROUP IS A LEADING FAMILYOWNED CONSTRUCTION BUSINESS, OPERATING ACROSS THE UK AND IRELAND We are proud to deliver an extensive range of engineering, build and construction services on some of the most prestigious projects in the world. Our Group companies provide specialist construction services - asbestos removal, demolition, civil engineering, dry lining and house building together with resource recovery services across multiple sectors.

www.careysplc.co.uk

Untitled-1 2

23/05/2018 09:59

S e