2022 A Year in Review

 Early December last year, saw the launching of ‘Construct Innovate’ the new National Construction Technology Centre hosted by the University of Galway and supported by UCD, TCD, UCC and the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC). On Friday, 9th December 2022 the launch was led by now Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, former Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. On the previous day 8th December, we held the first Board Meeting of Construct Innovate at the University of Galway - our new National Construction Technology Centre with the expert assistance of Enterprise Ireland. On the previous day, I was appointed by Enterprise Ireland as Interim Chair of this exciting new Centre pending a more permanent appointment in the coming months.

‘Construct Innovate’ has an amazing new Board with 50% gender balance including the most enterprising and innovative young people representing Industry, Academia and Professional Bodies in the construction industry.

On Wednesday 23rd November, on the invitation of Coillte, I chaired/facilitated the conference ‘Build with Wood - The Pathway to Net Zero’ in Avondale House with Minister Pippa Hackett, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine giving the Opening Address. This was followed by a comprehensive keynote address by Coillte CEO Imelda Hurley on the Future of Timber. This was followed by a range of national and international speakers on Opportunities, Challenges & Solutions for the Irish timber industry concluding with a Panel Discussion on Future Actions for Pathways Forward. After lunch in the Seed Café, tours for attendees were conducted on the Beyond the Trees Treetop Walk. This walk was simply stunning as it is built on the highest Douglas Fir trees I have seen.

On Thursday 24th November, I delivered the Keynote Address at the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) one day conference exploring how education, research, training and industry can enable the success of Next Generation Construction in Ireland. Conference Chair was Professor Orla Feely, UCD Vice President for Research, Innovation and Impact. Topics by expert speakers included New Technologies and Policies for Enhanced Sustainability, Digital Adoption using Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Modern Methods of Construction (MMC).

Two weeks earlier, I spoke at two separate events - at the first Build Digital Annual Conference on 26th October 2022 and at the plenary 3-monthly Construction Sector Group meeting on the following day 27th October chaired by the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

Monthly meetings of the CSG Innovation and Digital Adoption Sub Group resumed in early October after the summer break with the CSG Action Leaders and the CSG Innovation Sub Group on Innovation and Digital Adoption which are helping to accelerate construction in Digitisation, Productivity and Sustainability.

In late September, I chaired a Panel Discussion on ‘Construction Careers in the 21st Century’ at the request of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science at the Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska, County Laois which was very well attended where I met with Minister SImon Harris who is very enthusiatic on the new National Apprenticeship Scheme up by SOLAS.

The Panel consisted of Sean Armstrong, Head of Residential Cost Construction and Climate Action in the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, Jolene Hall, Senior Enterprise Adviser in the National Construction Training Centre in Mount Lucas , County Offaly, Justin Molloy, Regional Director, Construction Industry Federation and Bebhinn Kennedy, Enterprise Support on Retrofitting and Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB) also at Mount Lucas.

Before this Panel Discussion we heard Minister Harris state that there was a national transformation in third level education and training seeking to place apprenticeship training career-wise on a par with ‘going to college’ which will greatly add needed people in skills and numbers for our future industry.

The award of the new Construction Technology Centre was announced on 20th July 2022 by the Tánaiste, Leo Varadkar, TD, who is also the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Enterprise Ireland led by CEO Leo Clancy have awarded the contract for the new facility to University of Galway together with consortium partners UCD, TCD, UCC and the Irish Green Building Council.

The Construction Technology Centre is one of the CSG 7 Priority Actions under the chair of P J Rudden as Chair of Construction Innovation and Digital Adoption in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform as recommended by the 2020 KPMG Report on Productivity in the Irish Construction Sector. The delivery of this Centre a year ahead of programme by Enterprise Ireland is most welcome on our industry transformation journey.

Also, in July 2022, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform who act as the Secretariat for the Construction Sector Group (CSG) published both the Project Ireland 2040 BUILD 2022 Report on ‘Construction Sector Performance and Capacity’ and the Project Ireland 2040 Prospects 2022 - Ireland’s Major Infrastructure Project Pipeline. These two reports are published in full on the CSG LinkedIn page.

On 7th July, the quarterly plenary meeting of the Construction Sector Group was held, outlining very positive progress with the three principal Priority Actions - Construction Technology Centre, Build Digital Project and Modern Methods of Construction.

On 21st June last, Wexford County Council published the Aengus Consulting ‘Report on Events leading to the Water Quality Incident at Creagh Water Treatment Plant, Gorey, County Wexford’ after a detailed presentation of the Report to the Gorey - Kilmuckeridge Municipal District Elected Members by Wexford County Council Director of Services Eamonn Hore and Jim Fitzgerald Regional Operations Manager Irish Water. The Elected Members thanked the authors of the report with the outgoing Municipal District Chairman stating that ‘we were lucky that there was no casualties and happy that the recommendations of Aengus Consulting were either completed or in progress by Wexford County Council’.

The Municipal District Vice Chairman stated that ‘the (Aengus Consulting) report was very detailed, very honest, frank and held nothing back’ and he was satisfied that it will never happen again. Other local press reports stated that ‘Irish Water was represented at the meeting by Jim Fitzgerald, Regional Manager, Richard Ó hEadhra, Regional Communications and P J Rudden of Aengus Consulting Ltd who compiled the report assisted by Eleanor Boland who joined Aengus Consulting Ltd as Director of Engineering. Eamonn Hore, Director of Services and Senior Engineer, Fionnuala Callery with responsibility for water and roads at Wexford County Council were also in attendance. Mr Hore outlined the details contained in the report and answered members questions.

The Report is the outcome of a comprehensive examination conducted over several months last Autumn by P J Rudden and Eleanor Boland of Aengus Consulting Ltd who were commissioned by Wexford County Council to examine all the circumstances that led to the water quality incident in Gorey in August 2021.

On 29th June 2022, Mark Hilliard of the Irish Times reported that ‘the investigation, carried out by Aengus Consulting, noted that as a consequence of several failures including insufficient alarms at the plant, water had entered the public drinking supply without the appropriate level of disinfection’

On 9th June 2022 last, we spoke at the highly attended CIF Digicon Summit 2022 in Croke Park - well covered by the Sunday Business Post of 19th June where most of the CSG Innovation and Digital Adoption team presented papers also including Sean Downey, Neil Kerrigan, Liz Carroll, Avril Behan, Robert Moore, Martin Searson, Emma Hayes, Mary Flynn and Chris Chambers.

On 15th June last, I was invited to speak at the Energy and Power Conference in Rochestown Park Hotel in Cork in a ‘fireside chat’ together with Conor O’Connell Director CIF Southern Region which was well attended from all over Ireland but from the Munster region in particular.

The two months of April and May were very busy too as we launched the Build Digital Project in TU Dublin Grangegorman which was awarded by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to a consortium led by TU Dublin with CitA, UCD, Munster Technological University, Atlantic Technological University and South East Technological University (formerly Waterford Institute of Technology). This project is one the 7 Priority Actions and a central part of the CSG Sub Group Innovation and Digital Adoption Project which I have chaired since September 2020.

The other two CSG Sub Group Priority Actions are the Construction Technology Centre (CTC) and the Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) ecosystem and allied facilities. The first of these, the CTC is progressing well with confirmation that Enterprise Ireland after detailed assessment by an international expert panel, have decided to award the Construction Technology Centre to University of Galway in collaboration with UCD, TCD, UCC and the Irish Green Building Council. This winning consortium of third level colleges/entities will now host, create and use the existing modern research facilities on the existing campuses of all five organisations now to be led by University of Galway.

I spoke on the benefits of Modern Methods of Construction at the 2022 Irish Home Builders Association (IHBA) Housebuilding Summit in Croke Park under the very capable chair of Ivan Yates on the 5th April last. The Sunday Business Post reported on the Summit on 10th April stated that the panel of Avril Behan, Director, Build Digital Project at TUDublin, Dan O’Brien co-founder and MD of Lidan Design and myself “had the best summary of the conference. We have to have confidence because we only build it once. We have a once in a generation chance to do this as we now have a confluence of good things happening and a crisis is the time to do it” said Rudden.

I also attended my first meeting of the enlarged Project Ireland 2040 Delivery Board of Secretary Generals of all Government Departments together with the 5 newly appointed External Members including myself. This Government Board oversees the implementation of the National Development Plan 2021 - 2030, the National Planning Framework 2018 - 2040 and the Public Spending Code, all of which are essential elements of Project Ireland 2040, to provide the future housing and infrastructure to accommodate another one million people on our island.

In recent months, I took part in a highly interesting walking tour of recent social housing projects led by Dublin City Council in the Cork Street and Bonham Street parts of the Liberties together with senior officials of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the Housing Agency and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

The week before I was looking forward to observe the proposals by Enterprise Ireland for the new Construction Technology Centre. On Friday 11th March 2022, I was kindly invited to Galway by the CIF Western and Midlands Region to their Annual Dinner in the Galway Bay Hotel for the first time since 2019. It was a welcome change to attend an in-person dinner again and great thanks to Tara Flynn Chair of the Western and Midland Region.

On Friday 28th January last and on 25th April last , we had the quarterly meeting of the Construction Sector Group where I report on the CSG Sub Group activities to the DPER Secretary General and the wider CSG. We also have regular meetings of the CSG Sub Group and CSG Action Leader meetings.

In January, the CSG published the CIF Modern Methods of Construction Report and the Ernst & Young (EY) Report on the Construction Technology Centre on the CSG Innovation and Digital Adoption LinkedIn page.

During January, I was judging outstanding Irish and international building projects entered for the Irish Building Awards 2022. These Irish Construction Excellence (ICE) Awards will be presented in the National Convention Centre on Saturday 14th May 2022.