In this episode of AMPLIFIED, Dusty Rhodes is joined by Eamon Daly, Director at Egis, to explore the realities of delivering Ireland’s most vital infrastructure. From motorways and tunnels to Luas extensions and the future of MetroLink, Eamon shares stories from over 27 years in engineering. He explains the challenges of balancing deadlines, budgets, sustainability, and resources — while also highlighting the career opportunities for the next generation of engineers. Packed with insights on leadership, mentorship, and the future of transport in Ireland, this conversation offers a rare inside look at how critical national projects are brought to life.

THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT
● How major road and transport projects in Ireland are planned, designed, and delivered
● Lessons from major infrastructure builds — Dublin Tunnel, Jack Lynch Tunnel, Luas, and MetroLink.
● Overcoming geotechnical challenges: peat, karst, and precision bridge engineering.
● Balancing deadlines, budgets, and sustainability on mega-projects.
● The evolving planning system and how it affects delivery timelines.
● Resource challenges — why Ireland needs more engineers and international expertise.
● The value of mentorship, varied experience, and networking for career growth.
● Future-proofing skills: opportunities in transport, rail, and sustainable infrastructure.

GUEST DETAILS
Eamon Daly is a Director at Egis. Eamon has over 25 years' experience, specialising in Transportation and Traffic Engineering. Notable projects he has completed work on include Luas Finglas, N22 Baile Bhuirne to Macroom and N4 Collooney to Castlebaldwin.

In this episode of AMPLIFIED, Dusty Rhodes is joined by Eamon Daly, Director at Egis, to explore the realities of delivering Ireland’s most vital infrastructure. From motorways and tunnels to Luas extensions and the future of MetroLink, Eamon shares stories from over 27 years in engineering. He explains the challenges of balancing deadlines, budgets, sustainability, and resources — while also highlighting the career opportunities for the next generation of engineers. Packed with insights on leadership, mentorship, and the future of transport in Ireland, this conversation offers a rare inside look at how critical national projects are brought to life.

THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT

● How major road and transport projects in Ireland are planned, designed, and delivered
● Lessons from major infrastructure builds — Dublin Tunnel, Jack Lynch Tunnel, Luas, and MetroLink.
● Overcoming geotechnical challenges: peat, karst, and precision bridge engineering.
● Balancing deadlines, budgets, and sustainability on mega-projects.
● The evolving planning system and how it affects delivery timelines.
● Resource challenges — why Ireland needs more engineers and international expertise.
● The value of mentorship, varied experience, and networking for career growth.
● Future-proofing skills: opportunities in transport, rail, and sustainable infrastructure.

 

GUEST DETAILS
Eamon Daly is a Director at Egis. Eamon has over 25 years' experience, specialising in Transportation and Traffic Engineering. Notable projects he has completed work on include Luas Finglas, N22 Baile Bhuirne to Macroom and N4 Collooney to Castlebaldwin.

MORE INFORMATION
Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/  

Engineers Journal AMPLIFIED is produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland.

QUOTES

• "Sustainability needs to come into all projects – it’s business as usual now" - Eamon Daly
• "Good mentorship is vital. You’re going to make mistakes, but there’s always a solution and it’s never as bad as you think" - Eamon Daly
• "Ireland has great projects and mega projects ahead – it’s a fantastic time to be a young engineer" - Eamon Daly
• "Networking outside your organisation is always useful – we’re constantly talking to consultants, contractors and clients to see what’s coming next" - Eamon Daly
• "I’ve always stayed involved in design because it’s something I really enjoy – even while leading and managing teams" - Eamon Daly
• "As a capital city, Dublin needs a rail link into the city centre. MetroLink is about way more than just the airport – it’s part of an integrated transport system" - Eamon Daly

 

KEYWORDS
#Engineering #Infrastructure #Ireland #Transport #Sustainability #CivilEngineering #MetroLink #Luas #Motorways #Tunnels #Egis #EngineersIreland #CareerInEngineering #FutureOfTransport

 

TRANSCRIPTION

For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription

Dusty Rhodes  00:02
Hi there. My name is Dusty Rhodes, and you're welcome to AMPLIFIED, The Engineers Journal podcast.

Eamon Daly  00:07
We certainly need a rail link into our city centre. That's a given for me. Metrolink, it's way more than just one link from the airport into the city centre. It's part of an integrated public transport system.

Dusty Rhodes  00:26
Delivering world class infrastructure while driving Ireland's journey towards a sustainable future. Sounds ideal, but ultimately it's a major balancing act. We're about to get the inside story on what it takes to set up and manage vital national assets, including over 1200 kilometres of motorways across the country. Joining us to fill us in is a leading expert with over 27 years of experience in the field as a director at Egis. He's at the very heart of transforming our critical national infrastructure. It's a pleasure to welcome Eamon Daly.

Eamon Daly  00:59
Hi, Dusty. It's great to be here.

Dusty Rhodes  01:01
So listen, Eamon, tell me what got you into this fantastic industry we have called engineering.

Eamon Daly  01:07
Well, as a secondary student in St Keirans College in Kilkenny, I wasn't sure what career path I wanted, so I was stronger at maths and science subjects and things that involved problem solving, which I found, you know, throughout my career is what engineering design is largely about. So I decided to put engineering down into CEO farms. I was lucky enough to study Civil Engineering in UCD, graduating in 1995 with a degree and a master's in transportation engineering in 1996.

Dusty Rhodes  01:36
And what was your very first gig?

Eamon Daly  01:38
So I started working in Kilkenny county council as a graduate engineer in the road design office under the guidance of Oliver Manion. He was a Senior Executive Engineer at the time in the County County Council. I worked on some projects such as Callan  bypass and other local projects in Kilkenny, and I stayed there for probably about two years, and then I moved on to Fingal County Council, where I worked on the design of the M1 northern motorway between the airport and Balbriggan, which I think was the last major road scheme to be detailed, designed within a local authority. And it was probably the last major scheme that was an employer detail design contract, because going forward, major schemes were all either designer, builder, PPP type contracts. And in Fingal county council, I had a great mentor in Fingal county council, in John Fitzsimons, who went on and to have a very successful career in transport infrastructure Ireland. So I joined JB Barry and partners in 1999 and this was at the start again, as I said, of the major inter urban road building program in Ireland. So historically, JB Barry and partners were a water, wastewater and civil consultancy business, but with the publication of this national road needs study and the national development plan to set out to build dual carriageways and motorways around the country, JB Barry and partners, under the guidance of Liam Prendeville And Niall McDermott, set up a transportation division. And, you know, I joined them at that point, right at the start, which I felt was a really good opportunity to get involved and to grow and have good opportunities within that company to grow. And I stayed there for about four years that I worked on some really good, great projects such as the N7 Naas road, the M3 Navan to Dunshaughlin and M11 Rathnew to Arklow and the M8 Cashel to Mitchellstown. So they're all big projects, with a lot of projects being built and brought through planning at that time,

Dusty Rhodes  03:36
I do remember that M3 right out to Dunshaughlin. I did drive through that for maybe four years. It's funny how decades later you beat the man who was a who was behind it. But I'll give you this. I love that road now. I absolutely love it anyway. Let's continue on.

Eamon Daly  03:53
I left JB Barry's for in 2003 I moved to the west of Ireland, so my girlfriend at the time is a mayo woman, and she's now my wife, but we settled in Westport, and I took up a job with with Cobalt Consulting Engineers based out of Castlebar office. And I stayed with them for four years and worked on some good projects there to the N7 Nenagh project, and I worked on the gas terminal Bell and a boy, but in 2007 I got an opportunity to rejoin JB Barry's and open up their Castlebar office. So the west of Ireland office, and we started with a project called the N 17 Tuam to Claremorris. That wasn't a great time to start up an office, because 2007 was coming into recession, but we had a small crew here for every four or five people, and we managed it through a few years. And, you know, as we came out with recession down, we started to grow the office and where, I suppose we're here to this day,

Dusty Rhodes  04:53
It's interesting, though, for anybody who is in engineering, and you're working on all these amazing projects, and then all of a sudden. It's like, oh, hang on, I'm now in charge of the regional office. I've now got people who are working for me. It's a completely different skill set to actually doing engineering. How did you handle that transition from a technical engineering role to being a leader?

Eamon Daly  05:14
Well, I think the transition was quite easy for me, because we started off with a small number of the office, and it grew from there. And look, even though I'm I'm leading people and and, you know, managing people like I've always stayed involved in the engineering design and the detail of projects. It's something I really enjoy

Dusty Rhodes  05:34
I want to get into the meat and potatoes and some of the projects that you've mentioned that you have worked on. And, of course, now today, we've got Egis, who are working on the Dublin tunnel. Jack Lynch tunnel is under their preview. The purview is another word, Lewis as well, which I believe you're directly involved with. But let's go back to Galway and the end 17, you were involved in the new road there from Gort to toe, and a ton of problems that presented you, I believe, as well.

Eamon Daly  06:02
Yeah, the N17 is a motorway scheme from the south of Galway up to to in the order about 60 kilometres long. And we were designed that in a giant venture with Arab so the contractor was a company, a PPP company, called direct route. And the contractors were Robert Sisk and Lagan. So we designed a northern half of the scheme, approximately 30 kilometres of motorway. But there were some significant challenges on that project, soft ground, so there was, there was a significant depth of peat, and that was underlined by Mars. It was soft ground up to, you know, 3014, 15 meters depth. So particularly, you might dig out the soft ground or a case it, but it wasn't, it wasn't an option with that depth. And then there was a constraint that the road had to be built by a certain time. So you can search our soft ground, but it takes a long time to settle and compact. So we came up with a solution of about two climbs of the road where we put in these circular band drains and compacted the ground quicker. Um, but look, it was, it was, it was a challenge at the time, but it's worked out really well. Another, I suppose, another thing on that project was karst as well. Here is, is for the limestone and karst rock. So we came up with a protocol to identify cars in the area. And we did come across some significant cars features, and we had to develop solutions for those, geotechnical solutions for those so it was, it was a really good project.

Dusty Rhodes  07:32
Can you give me an example of one of the solutions?

Eamon Daly  07:35
Yeah, I can. And in some cases, there were just standard details where we fill this the car treat. It was small enough in one particular solution. It was, it was quite a large hole in the ground for the simple terms, and it was near, near a bridge structure. So we actually ended up building a structure, a concrete structure, above the hole, and span the hole with foundations either side of it. So it was like a structure on a structure.

Dusty Rhodes  08:01
And was this kind of around the time where you had taken over, you were in charge of the regional office, and this was you, for the first time.

Eamon Daly  08:10
Well, it was, it was probably, it was probably a few years later, but, like, I suppose, why we have a regional office? We use our offices around the country with different people in different people in different offices, and we've different specialists and different plates. And they all, they all take part in the design, and are all part of the team.

Dusty Rhodes  08:28
That's that's good also. Now it wasn't just around the goal. You're also involved in the the N22 around the Macroom.

Eamon Daly  08:37
Yeah. So that part more recent, in the last two or three years. It's a project down in County Cork, I suppose, 22 kilometres of motorway. There was a significant number of bridges on that project, and it was well over 40 bridges and a lot of other smaller structures as well. And look, there was a lot of challenges to that project. The topography was was difficult down there, there was some large River bridges. In fact, there was, I suppose, two. Two in particular is the bow Hill River Bridge, which was 120 metre two span steel bridge. And it was a lot of constraints around the site. There was high voltage lines and poor ground conditions. So we came up with this innovative solution to push launch to bridge rather than lift the beams in place. And I think it's the, it's, I'm almost certain it's the largest one of its, of its, of its kind, in Ireland.

Dusty Rhodes  09:32
So tell me more how the push launch works.

Eamon Daly  09:36
So the push launch basically, you set up a structure beside it, basically, and you put you in simple terms, you just push the bridge in from one side over to the other. But it has to be quite precise, because it has to land on, on, on intermediate beam, intermediate beams along the way.

Dusty Rhodes  09:53
So the picture in my head, strange enough, is of ER at the TV show, and they're in the operation theatre, and they've got the big fat man. On a gurney that they brought in. They're pushing him onto the operating table. Is that what you did with the bridge?

Eamon Daly  10:04
Well, we push it in, but it's it gets very precise. Well, it is precise. It has to land on it, on intermediate peers. It has to push to the far side and land in the right sedation at the right at the right level.

Dusty Rhodes  10:18
Do you ever worry about the precision of that? Because, I mean, quite often you have to be just within millimetres, or bang on it.

Eamon Daly  10:25
Yeah, it's within millimetres. But no, look, it's measured all the time and surveyed all the time, and there's great technology

Dusty Rhodes  10:32
For at the moment, is there any particular challenge when you're doing getting things together and getting them merged up perfectly with a two span bridge, as opposed to a regular bridge.

Eamon Daly  10:44
Well, look, yeah, well, generally, generally, where we have a two span bridge, we're lifting in beams or cranes, so it's not as difficult. But with a push launch, we're pushing it from one side to the other. It is more challenging because you have to push it across through, through the intermediate piers to land on the far side on the end here, but went out to far side.

Dusty Rhodes  11:04
And where did the bridges come from?

Eamon Daly  11:07
So the bridges came from Spain. So the steel came from Spain, from Seville, actually. So they were brought up by by shift from Seville into Cork and transfer up, you know, by road, by road, yeah, and they are huge, like the depth of the beams are, I think there were 3.75 meters in depth. So you can imagine there two are huge.

Dusty Rhodes  11:30
So this is essentially the bridge is a it's a two lane road, and you're transporting it on a two lane road. Yes. How does that work?

Eamon Daly  11:40
Well, again, we your specialists, specialists transporters, who do that. And if the special equipment, and they do it overnight time and flood roads with escorts.

Dusty Rhodes  11:52
There was another bridge who you were working on the the N22 and it was, it was a bit of a record breaker as well, I believe.

Eamon Daly  11:57
Yeah. So there was, there was, there was two large, single span this time, River bridges, Belani and the Slan bridges. And, you know, initially, when we looked at those bridges, there were going to be steel bridges, but, but we developed a concrete bridge designed for those, and they were the longest single span concrete bridges constructed in Ireland at the time, I think SLR and there were, I think it was 49.9 meters long. Was the longest spa. So we didn't quite get to 50 meters, but close enough.

Dusty Rhodes  12:31
At what stage of the project did you go? We're not going steel, we're going concrete.

Eamon Daly  12:34
So again, we looked at it. We would have been involved in the tender design for the conscious of design and build. So we design for a contractor. So we do a tender design, and then we move on to, if they're successful with a tender design, we do a detailed design for them. So initially, we would have looked at the tender design stage to see if there was efficiencies, and, you know, economies of scale, to try and come up with a solution that might, might value engineer to value engineer to bridge for the contractor, basically to make it, to give them no maybe additive advantage grant.

Dusty Rhodes  13:10
So was it more a financial decision than it was a construction decision?

Eamon Daly  13:15
I look at it's a bit of both as well, like, you know, and there's, there's a different cost to steal as well. No, great. So there were areas, and there's a there's a construction element to it as well.

Dusty Rhodes  13:28
And did you ever have kind of a situation where you know you want to go one particular direction, or, even worse, you want to go one particular direction with something new, all right? And then you've got that balance of, well, we need to do it this way. And then there's the finance and everything. How do you get your idea across the line with a customer?

Eamon Daly  13:49
When we're working on design builds with big contractors, they certainly have opinions, and we have, we have also have a set of what's called works requirements that we have to comply with as well, so the employer or the client, the client would have a set of works crimes. So we've got to comply with that, and then within that, within that, we will talk to the contractor. We will value engineer solutions that will optimise the design for them.

Dusty Rhodes  14:15
We've been talking about Galway. We've been talking about cork. Let's keep on the west side of the country and the independent republic of Donegal. Have you done any work up that neck of the woods?

Eamon Daly  14:26
Yeah. So, so we're currently, we've done quite a bit of work up in Donegal over the years, but we're currently working on a significant project up in Donegal called the Donegal 10 t project. So that involve, you know, three sections of the national primary network. In Donegal. There's a section that bypasses Bally buffet, there's a section that bypasses letter Kenny, includes a new bridge over the sweaty river. And then there's a section that from Letterkenny down to Lifford again, which shines the a five in Northern Ireland. And eventually it's into in the Republic again. So that's a large project. It's a multimodal project. So it's not only a road project. It includes active travel and kind of parking share sites that allow, for, you know, transfer onto to the active travel, and for, you know, parking and bus pickups and things like that. So it's a significant project up in the north, in the north west. And Donegal is probably an area that has had, you know, maybe a lack of investment over the years. And, you know, I suppose it's peripheral to Ireland, really, and even more so with Brexit, you know, it's probably more peripheral. There's no rail lines either, and no railway in Donegal at all. So they are very much reliant, reliant on road and road infrastructure.

Dusty Rhodes  15:49
But the railway is more to do with the terrain, isn't it, than funding in Donegal?

Eamon Daly  15:54
I wouldn't think so. Historically, there's been a lot of railway networks, but they're all abandoned, disused at the moment.

Dusty Rhodes  16:03
Do you think there is an idea in the back of your head there, kind of, let's get those rail lines working again?

Eamon Daly  16:09
Well, there is, I think there's recent studies. There's an all Ireland rail study, which does talk about linking Derry down to letter county with a rail line.

Dusty Rhodes  16:17
It will be good. And it's been done before, where previously abandoned rail lines have been brought back to life, to great effect. I'd like to ask you about just the management of motorways and roadways, because you're very involved in that side of things. And now Jamie Barry is now known as Egis Ireland, and they are a multinational, big company. What kind of global experience. Are they bringing to you, from managing motorways across Europe and roads across Europe to managing roads in Ireland? What are they bringing to the game?

Eamon Daly  16:49
Yeah, I suppose back in I suppose 2018 or 2019 and as a company in JB, Barry's, suppose we're always looking what's happening next, and we could see that there was going to be a push into into public transport, and it was going to be a lot of investment in rail and light rail. And we didn't have that experience at the time, so we did a bit of looking around, a bit of digging. And eaters are a company that kind of kept coming to us today. They're operating in the Irish market since about 1994 I think. But as you said, in the operation side of things. So they manage Dublin tunnel and Jack Lange tunnel and some of the more ways around Ireland. But they also have strong rail capabilities internationally. They had a small Irish rail team actually in Ireland at the time, so we brought them on board for a TII framework, and very soon afterwards, actually, we won a contract to bring the Lewis fingerless project through from option selection through to planning stages. So that was kind of our first project. We grew our relationship with them since then, and obviously we've come, we've come part of the these group fairly recently. So you go back to your question, yeah, they have strong operational capability. Manager said that the jack Lance and Durban tunnel, and they're involved in motorway mains, said they operate part of the motorways around Ireland.

Dusty Rhodes  18:23
Have you had an opportunity to look at stuff that they've done abroad on a bigger scale that you just kind of went in your head? Good, god, that's amazing.

Eamon Daly  18:33
Obviously, I'm aware of some of the projects they're involved in. You know, for example, the Paris Metro, and they're doing a lot of work on Paris Metro, on extending those lines, which is, I suppose, but is in a good position looking at at the development of Metro link in Ireland, where we've got real benefit at the moment is that, you know, we're using their resources on, on on some of our projects. So we're currently working on the detailed design of the Adair bypass for sis Sorenson, who's our client to contractors. And again, that is a real pressurised project. Needs to be open in time for the Adair for the Ryder Cup. So there's a does that project has about, you know, 12 or 13 bridges out and need to be all designed quite quickly. So we're using Egis offices around Europe and further afield to design those bridges. So we're using designers in Serbia, Poland and Thailand design bridges for us, which is a significant benefit to us.

Dusty Rhodes  19:36
Obviously, now you're pulling into the cavalry as it were, to get there. And what happens when you are when you're on a big, big project like that, and there's a very definite deadline, projects always run late. Do you mean problems always occur? Things happen money runs out, or people get sick, or whatever it happens to be like, you know, there's always problems have to be over when you've got a hard deadline like that. How do you hand. All, all of the problems leading up to that deadline.

Eamon Daly  20:04
Well, you're right on all engineering projects. There's challenges, there's things that change. People want to do things differently a certain time. But what we have is we've a really strong management team case we bring in additional resources. We can do that now, with the wider group, it's easier for us to do that. And then there's, like, there's huge communication on the project, so we're dealing with a contractor on that. So there's, there's meetings happening every day. Scheduled meetings happen, you know, a few times a week. And we things are brought to a head really quickly, and we make decisions and we move forward.

Dusty Rhodes  20:43
Let me ask you about something you mentioned. You mentioned the Lewis, yeah, and the Metro link. And there were some very controversial comments recently from Michael O'Leary with Ryanair, which is just what he does. All right, yeah. But I thought what he said was that the Metro link out to the airport, he said, is a waste of time. And I've you know, yeah, I'm used to hearing that. But what he said was that the amount of people who go to Heathrow Airport in London is something like 15% take the tube, which goes all over London. And he's saying his point of view is that an Irish version of that will be a waste of time, because literally, you're just going down through whatever Ballymore and fingers that kind of a way, and it's only the people who live in those direct areas would actually get the benefit. Is there any sense? Or is he completely wrong? Or how do you respond?

Eamon Daly  21:34
But I'm not directly involved in the measuring project myself. I'm giving you my own personal opinion on it.

Dusty Rhodes  21:39
That's all I want. And this has nothing to do with the companies, just between Eamon and Dusty and that's it.

Eamon Daly  21:46
Absolutely so for me, I think that's a real simplified view of the thing. First of all, I think that as a capital city, we certainly need a rail link into our city centre. That's a given. I think if you look at the capital cities all around the world, they all have a rail link, and generally it's an underground Rail Link. But he gets a very simplified view. For me, it's way more than just one link from the airport into the city centre. It's part of an integrated public transport system. So what I mean by that is that Metrolink isn't just a rail. It has stations. It has linkages. So it's going to link to dark plus it's going to link to the Lewis, it's going to link to the heavy rail system, and it's going to link to bus connects. Yeah. So it's way, if people can can, and aside down in any public transport system, people need to move or jump jump trains, or jump from bus to train, or jump from Lewis to train. And this is what it will do, and it's the first line. It may continue and it may expand. But what it does do, it also. It's certainly going to help, at some point, to reach our climate targets. And I read some, and I hope I'm writing this, that by somewhere around 2050 it's going to divert three, 50 million car trips, or something like that, which is a huge number. So it's going to take significant passengers, and it's a really efficient way of travel.

Dusty Rhodes  23:10
And, you know, I'm a big believer in, if you build it, they will come. It's taken from some movie or whatever. But if it's not there, people will moan. But as soon as it's there and you've gone through all of the pain, it's like, Ah, no, sure. I'll go into town. I'll take the metro link out to the airport. And I know from myself and my friends, when you're travelling abroad, and you get there to the airport, and if there's no train, you kind of go, Ah, come on. You don't do that when you come back to Dublin, for some reason. I don't know why, but the bus connects the bus side of it was another thing that Michael was saying. He says, there's a really good bus service from Dublin Airport, and there's always, I always feel sorry when I'm when I come home to Dublin, and I'm hearing people that kind of like, Yeah, I'm going to get the bus to Galway now. And I got ugh. But the fact that you can get the bus from Dublin Airport non stop, around the M 50 and straight over to Galway is a huge improvement, and what it was years ago. And I know the bus connects are making similar kind of improvements. Can you tell me more about them? Because you're involved in them as well.

Eamon Daly  24:11
Yeah, we're involved in a couple like we've we're involved in a bus connect scheme in, actually in Galway that's currently with on commission and all for black food. But we're also involved in the bus connects projects in Dublin. So there's 12, I suppose, quality bus corridors being sustainable transport corridors, just call them being constructed in Dublin. And the first two of those bus corridors have already been tendered. So we're a part of a team with a with a contractor called call Graham's, and we've tendered the first two projects with them, so we're the preferred bidder on one of those projects. So we're hoping that was they would get over the line at some point, but if not, we'd be involved in in in one of those projects at some point in the future.

Dusty Rhodes  24:55
Let's talk about a topic that is always close to every engineers heart or. Dread planning. Lots of changes in the planning scenario. Kind of recently, we've got a renaming of the planning board. There's changes in legislation and stuff like that. It's still a it's still a difficult area.

Eamon Daly  25:14
Where do the problems arise for you? It's changed hugely over my career anyway, so when I, when I started off planning of road schemes back in the early 2000's you could take, I suppose, a road project from feasibility study right through to planning, maybe in the order or years or five years. Now it's taken, you know, 10 years or 10 years plus to get it through the system. And you know, things have changed through that period. Like the whole process is like feasibility the option selection is a good one. So we would have gone through an option selection to choose the right type of project and the right type of road and the right location for within about 12 months, and that's taken significantly longer now, and there's just different processes. So now, when we start a project, we need to justify if it's a bypass or if it's a if it's a rail line. So we have to look at, you know, the forms of transport initially, to come up with, to see if it's a bypass. And then we saw a process of looking at long list of options and shorter lists of options. And so it just takes a lot, a lot longer. There's more processes, and that's to do with the planning as well, to show that we've gone through all the processes correctly. And then there's also approvals, in terms of business case approvals, which is is getting more and more stringent, and we need to get a government approval at certain points and in the process. So one of the things you mentioned was the new Planning and Development Act was in 2024 and again, I think there was a few things for that was really to help with accelerating the planning process and the all kind of the law aims to balance kind of faster housing and infrastructure. How would it need to protect, you know, their heritage. So recently, we've kind of seen some projects go through the planning process quicker. So connects, as an example, there was a same bypass, and they've gone through without the need for all hearings. Which is a positive, is a positive, positive thing in that it's going to help, help Quicken up them. So I think there's been changes on what can all has become on commission, and really it's, it's all to do with trying to get decisions made in a more timely, more timely manner.

Dusty Rhodes  27:24
And are you feeling positive that that may happen?

Eamon Daly  27:27
I am thinking positive. Yes. I've seen, you know, as on some projects recently, we've seen there are closed and we've seen post connects. It does seem to be happening. Yeah.

Dusty Rhodes  27:35
And tell me about resources as well, because that's that's another problem in engineering that people need to get over. You're often asked to do too much with not enough.

Eamon Daly  27:43
Yeah, I think, I think resources is a huge challenge at the moment in Ireland. So we can see the national development plan. I think that the I think it's 270 5 billion to be spent between 2026 and 2035, and of that, and even a transportation is over 20 to 22 billion. We can see there's a housing crisis, huge need for housing to be built and and now all takes resources. So there's only so many resources in Ireland. We can't We can't make them. There's only so many coming out each year from the university. So we do need to use international resources and design centers, but there's also a need to bring those resources to Ireland and into the country to work here. But again, it's a bit of a vicious circle, because we bring people into the country, there's nowhere to house them. So it is, it is a challenge. But also, you know, within our practice and consulting engineers, where, you know, we're looking for, for a large number of engineers and technicians and as our other consulting engineers, but also the clients are also looking for people to manage their projects. So you've TI and local authorities and the NDA and Irish Randy are all looking for for engineers and people to manage the projects for them on their side. So yeah, it is a challenge. It's when we're trying to work through and even as a company, it's difficult.

Dusty Rhodes  29:04
It's a strange thing, because I hear that quite a lot, that we don't have enough engineers, and there's no point in asking where we're going to get them from, because we're all engineers listening and the pair of us chatting. But where, what would you say to engineers listening to our chat today. What should they be saying to their friends, or their nieces, nephews, their friends, kids, or whatever, to try and encourage them to just get into engineering, because it's such an amazing, fascinating career.

Eamon Daly  29:33
Well, I would say that there's, there's, there's variety every day, just different challenges. Every day, the projects are all different. There's a variety of different like, I'm working in transportation, but we even within transportation, there's rail, there's there's bus, there's roads as a significant variety, and then there's the whole, you know, there's, there's housing and infrastructure, that type of infrastructure. There's water, wastewater sign, again, there's a huge need to. We can't build houses without, you know, improving have a new water supply, and water treatment is the huge factor. So it's great opportunities for anyone you know, coming in or young people, I suppose, our graduates in Civil Engineering at the moment, and it's similar, like when I graduated and in 1995 from UCD was probably a great time to be graduating, because I think the class in 94 a lot of them emigrated to get work. And I think the majority of the 95 this class, when I graduated, all got employment within Ireland.

Dusty Rhodes  30:35
And they were lucky Absolutely. I often think, since I've started doing the podcast, it's kind of like you say traveling the world or whatever, but they, they used to say that if you contend bar, you can work anywhere. And I actually think that engineering is a bit like being a bar man, except the pay is way better and the hours are far more sociable. I can't see why, because you said it yourself when you started off, you said you were kind of, you were getting your experience, and you were in the big cities and all that kind of stuff, but you wanted to move to Mayo. Boom. Off you went,

Eamon Daly  31:09
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, you know. So you're following your life, yeah? And even more so now, like with hybrid working, it's, you know, oh, it's even easier again, yeah.

Dusty Rhodes  31:15
And also the fact that you're able to bring in people from from around Europe, when you have a deadline on and you're able to bring in that help, like that's what I'm just saying, is the flexibility and and everything. There's so much to it. Way more people should be getting into engineering. Listen. Let me kind of wrap up our little chat today. Another thing is very important to engineers, right across the board, is sustainability. Your point of view with sustainability? Give it to me.

Eamon Daly  31:40
Obviously, sustainability is huge. At the moment, climate is huge, so sustainability needs to come into all projects. So again, example, there's Italy was famous. We've come up with a really innovative sustainable solution, and that the majority that is going to be a grass track, which is a really sustainable design, but also in terms of other infrastructure projects. So we're not only developing road schemes, but we're looking at how to develop a more sustainable so we're really looking at, you know, for example, the cut, fill balance, so how much we should dig out and where we to place it? Can we reuse that material so there's really as little amount of waste as possible within a project. And we're also looking at sustainable ways of travel within a project. So we're building active travel elements alongside a road to allow for people you know, to have more choice and to shift from cars to cycling, bicycles or whatever it is, looks the same. It's part of what we're doing now all the time, it's really business as usual.

Dusty Rhodes  32:46
Let me ask you, if you can give a little bit of advice to people listening about moving up the chain, what would you say, from your own experience, are the most effective ways for an engineer to fast track their career in a large consultancy.

Eamon Daly  33:01
It's very good question, Dusty. So as I said, it at the moment is a really positive time that the outlook for engineers is fantastic. At the moment, there's going to be great projects and mega projects in Ireland over the next, you know, 10 to 1520, years. So there's a great experience, a great it's a great time to be a young engineer. I would suggest get as much design experience as possible. Get as much varied experience as possible. So if you're working in roles, do it for a while. Learn a bit about about rail, about railways, learn about, you know, structures. Get you know, vary your experience. But also, I suppose, with so much work on it also brings a bit of pressure and design pressure. So I think good mentorship is good that someone you can go to and talk to as young engineers, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to worry if your design, you've done is correct. And there's problems all the time in engineering, but they do get resolved. Don't be afraid to ask for help to explain your concerns, there's always a solution. It's generally not as bad as you think it is.

Dusty Rhodes  34:07
Making mistakes is almost the best way to learn. Not big mistakes now, but little mistakes. You mentioned a mentor there? Did you have a mentor yourself?

Eamon Daly  34:16
I've had lots of mentors over the years. I suppose I spent a long time in JB, very in parallel stuff we went to, really since 1999 with a short sabbatical to the west of Ireland, giant hobos. But I when I joined JB, Barry's in 1999 Liam penderville was there at the time, and he led up the transportation division. So I've worked closely with Liam since, since 1999 and he's been, he's been a great mentor to me over those years.

Dusty Rhodes  34:46
And how did he mentor you? What? What way did he improve you?

Eamon Daly  34:50
I would say, just be able to bounce things off and through the talk problems, through issues, through, I think that's, that's really it's as simple as that to see, oh, that things come up. And we talked things through and we came up with waste was awesome, or to move forward.

Dusty Rhodes  35:05
And so if Liam, I think, I think Liam was the managing director, if I'm not mistaken, that's correct. Yeah, quite often it's hard to sit down and have a coffee with your managing director just to chat out problems, but it's good to have a mentor who's maybe one or two steps above you.

Eamon Daly  35:18
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely any like, I think you'll have mentors who are our peers. You'll have mentors who are, you know, maybe your line managers, but, but also, anyone in the company can be a mentor to you. I think it think, you know, you have to be able to approach people and be able to talk soon.

Dusty Rhodes  35:32
And you don't necessarily have to go because I'm in with the internet now, there's loads of people, oh, I'm a coach and I'm a mentor, and another, you don't have to go there in that line. It's people around you that you can use.

Eamon Daly  35:42
I think it's people, people who know of know the industry, as people you can provide and as people who can you can talk to if you're an issue or a problem, or you you have a concern.

Dusty Rhodes  35:50
And then outside of your immediate environment, I'm thinking about professional networks, I suppose, like engineers Ireland or industry organizations. Have you found them to be valuable for your own career growth?

Eamon Daly  36:03
Yeah, absolutely. Like engineers aren't do do great work. They've great CPD continuing professional development, so they're constantly putting on talks or lectures. So I find them very good, and attend those regularly. We're also part of the Association of consulting engineers of Ireland, again, which, which kind of, I suppose, give advice and protect Consulting Engineers. So yeah, I find both those organizations to be, to be very helpful.

Dusty Rhodes  36:29
And they have live meetups, as they call it these days, events, as you say, where you can actually go and hold a cup of coffee or playing to Guinness or whatever, and you say hello to somebody, and how are you? Did you find that kind of conversation with people useful.

Eamon Daly  36:43
And it's like, I think, I think networking outside your organisation is always useful. And look, we as consultant engineers, or regularly talk to other Consulting Engineers, see what's happening and what's going on. And, you know, we talk from time to time with, you know, on certain projects or really large projects, about teaming up with other consultants. So it's always good to talk. We talked to contractors. Constantly, me up at them to find out what's going on from their side and what projects are coming up and what they're looking at. So we're constantly looking and chatting to them. 

Dusty Rhodes  37:11
So now you're kind of sitting high up in the operation. You've got lots of engineers who are coming up the ladder. We may have a couple of engineers listening, going, I want to move up. If you were starting your engineering career today, what areas would you focus on to future proof your skills?

Eamon Daly  37:29
And I'm a little bit biased, so I'd be saying transportation, you know, and we, you can see we spoke about the National Development Plan area and on the likes of Metro and Inc and the Lewis and the road network that needs to be improved, so I guess there's great opportunity there.

Dusty Rhodes  37:46
All right, good  stuff. Listen, Eamon. You have been an absolute genius and a joy to talk to, and you've given us so much of your time and so much great information.

Eamon Daly  38.14
Thank you very, very much.

Dusty Rhodes  38:19
If you'd like to find out more about Eamon’s work and the topics we discussed today, you'll find notes and link details in the description of this podcast. But for now, Eamon Daly, Director at Egis, thank you so much. We hope that you enjoyed our conversation today. If you know another engineer who would appreciate these insights, please do share this podcast with them. They can find us by searching for Engineers Ireland, wherever they listen to podcasts. The podcast is produced by dustpod.io for Engineers Ireland, for advanced episodes, more information on the latest trends or career development device. You can find a wealth of resources on the website at engineers ireland.ie. On the next time for myself. Dusty Rhodes, thank you for listening.

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer.

Odran shares highlights of his career at the premier family-owned Coffey Group.

He reflects on his trajectory with the firm, favourite projects and most interesting challenges. The episode also looks ahead at the sustainability landscape, including a growing pressure to broaden the options available in terms of construction processes, materials and deployment.

You’ll hear about some fascinating new technologies (like those behind Coffey’s mobile emergency waste treatment plant design) and why it’s so critical that students in Ireland receive plenty of exposure to the many upsides of a career in engineering.

Odran also shares thoughts about the benefits of Continuing Professional Development programmes and the critical role EI plays in upholding a consistent gold standard across the engineering industry.

Topics we discussed include:

• The M7 Motorway Project’s specific challenges and the creative solutions Coffey engineers found to make it all work.
• How Coffey culture emphasizes CPS and why it promotes growth and advancement through ongoing professional training and accreditation.
• Lough Talt Water Treatment Plant
• How and why Coffey engineers designed a mobile emergency water treatment plant housed within a single 40-foot container
• The advantage of plug-and-play installations as a time- and labour-saver and China’s lightning-quick ability to design and build fully equipped hospitals using this modular construction.
• How “pilot” customers are deterred by perceived risk. Can you counter that anxiety with reassuring examples of successful work?
• About Coffey’s most pressing challenges from labour to finite opportunity.
• Odran’s predictions on the civil engineering sector, investment in housing, transport and energy and infrastructure improvements needed to support population growth and social demands.

Guest Details

Odran Madden is a Chartered Engineer with over 20 years experience in the construction industry and over 15 years experience at management level undertaking civil engineering and building construction projects of varying scales, values and complexities.

Odran has gained extensive knowledge and experience in water, wastewater, road, rail, energy and specialist engineering projects. His role is to ensure that all projects are completed safely, to a high standard, to our client’s satisfaction and that the project teams are provided with the necessary technical support and resources.

Odran holds BEng and LLB degrees, is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Institute of Engineers of Ireland and an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.

Quotes

“I quite enjoy working with water. It's very technically challenging, when you can take wastewater treatment to a safe and clean standard and give that water out to customers to drink, it’s very rewarding.”

“I've certainly come across resistance in Ireland to things like pre-cast concrete over in-situ concrete. Some people do have resistance but it's changing and becoming more and more the norm.”

“We don't really like change … (but) we need to allow the new innovative ways to advance.”

“If you're meeting strangers, they're less likely to accept something that's going to be a little bit different. So you do need to have strong relationships with people. That's why I think having that repeat business is so important to help you get stuff over the line.”

Contact Details

https://www.coffeygroup.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/odran-madden-226bb144/

More information

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer.

https://www.engineersireland.ie/

Transcription text

For your convenience, here is a 90% accurate automated transcript of the podcast.

Dusty Rhodes  0:02 

Right now on amplified the engineers journal podcast, we're about to meet the managing director of coffee group adran. Madden are kind

Odran Madden  0:09 

of a person as an engineer, I would say typically they're well rounded individual who is attracted to technical issues and likes to solve problems.

Dusty Rhodes  0:40 

Hello there, my name is Dusty Rhodes and welcome to the engineers Ireland podcast where we're chatting with our community of creative professionals across the country, about how engineers are delivering sustainable solutions for society both now and in the future. Today, we're finding out more about coffee, the family owned firm who over five decades have operated in every major construction sector throughout the UK and Ireland, which is their success is down to the quality efficiency and a belief in their directly employed workforce. At the helm is a man who has been through the twists and turns of successes of the firm working in water, wastewater, road rail energy and specialist engineering projects. He has seen it all it's a pleasure to welcome managing director Odran Madden, how're you doing?

Odran Madden  1:25 

I just see how are you? Thanks for having me on.

Dusty Rhodes  1:27 

So water, wastewater, road rail, energy specialists, engineer, that is a long list of stuff you have done. Have you have you got a favorite project in there?

Odran Madden  1:37 

Yeah, look, it's quite quite a diverse range of projects. And I think coffee I suppose I've been very lucky that I've been able to touch across a lot of these projects. I started doing a lot of road projects when I started first as a graduate engineer, and progressed on to water. And I've done some very interesting projects as well across many sectors. We built a large motorway and in Limerick motorway so that when in a joint venture that was that was very interesting, very, very challenging as well. We did some very large reservoir projects, water towers. And we also did domestic water metering project for Irish water, which proved to be quite politically charged and challenging for us as a contractor to try and deliver on the ground. So yeah, we've we've had some we've had some very interesting projects over the years,

Dusty Rhodes  2:20 

it must be an absolute nightmare working with water, is it? No,

Odran Madden  2:24 

I quite enjoy it. I think it's it's very technically challenging, but very rewarding as well, when you know that you can, you can take some water wastewater treaters to a safe and clean standard and give that water out to customers to drink. It's very rewarding

Dusty Rhodes  2:40 

in that, in that sense, one of the biggest difficulties of working with water, while working

Odran Madden  2:44 

with water, when you take a role water source, you don't really know what's what's in it to start so. So you're designing for a standard of water to start and to treat that and, and that body of water can change and develop over a period of time. So you have to be quite dynamic in your approach and how you can how you can treat on an ongoing basis. And it can be very seasonal as well, different times of the year will bring different challenges when it comes to water water treatment. So yeah, it's it's quite challenging in terms of how you deal with that. Have you ever

Dusty Rhodes  3:14 

had a situation where you're going, okay, based on my experience, the water should do this. And then the water goes off and does something else.

Odran Madden  3:21 

It can just be programmed at the moment in terms of water leakage. And we've been doing quite a lot of work on whatever is water on that and you can repair, repair a section of pipe and think that's great. And then or we just find the next path to put some pressure on and, and cause problems somewhere else down the network. You can also treat water in a treatment plant, and water can be perfectly leaving the treatment plant when and when it gets down the network. It can cause additional challenges depending on the length of the network and the length of time it's been in the pipe. So

Dusty Rhodes  3:49 

can you give me an example of one of those challenges?

Odran Madden  3:52 

Yeah, actually, we had been working on on a project in in LA called fresh water, which was on a boil water notice for a long time and we put in an innovative process to treat the water there. But you know, there were challenges down the network after the treatment because of the length of the network pipe that's that's there around feeding, feeding 12,000 people around around Congress Lagos. So we had to revise some of the some of the treatment procedures there to try and enhance the water quality further on the network.

Dusty Rhodes  4:20 

Tell me about the motorway project that you mentioned in Limerick that's a huge job is that one of the biggest you've tackled?

Odran Madden  4:27 

It is is a single standard on contract. Yes, it is. We were in a joint venture there with two other partners that even even the relationships within the joint venture was more challenging as you can imagine. One of those was a European contractor as well. So we have had language barriers and cultural barriers as well as everything else. But yeah, it was a challenging project in terms of the terrain we were crossing there was a lot of deep bugs. Definitely a tough project to be on but it was it's really really rewarding when you you know get through a project like that and you open that road open you can see the commuters and people But traveling along that road and it being a safer environment for them to travel on,

Dusty Rhodes  5:04 

how do you build a motorway across a bog?

Odran Madden  5:08 

In that regard, we piled it actually, we put in lots of two 3000 concrete piles, we drove them down through the through the bog until they hit solid ground. We also did some quite another innovative technique on some of the smaller access roads and local access roads for farmers and landowners. Where we used tire bales, so basically tires, and we wrapped them in bales, and we put some geotextile around them and build stone over top. And so essentially, it's a floating road.

Dusty Rhodes  5:35 

What was the reaction when he came up with that idea? First, let's get some tires. Yeah.

Odran Madden  5:39 

Yeah, it's it's actually mean it has been used before. And it goes back to even even way back, you'd see that the online commission in the forestry, you know, using all three logs to line across the bugs. So you just, you know, put stone over them. And so the concept of a floating road has been around for forever, in Ireland when we're very used to bugs and having to travel across them. So that concept has been around for a while. Because they're floating, they typically move a little so you know, it's challenging for for a motorway standard road, but for a local access road. It's it's, it's a great solution.

Dusty Rhodes  6:13 

Would you say the bug was the biggest challenge on that motorway?

Odran Madden  6:16 

Yeah, it definitely was on that one. Yeah, absolutely.

Dusty Rhodes  6:18 

Why did you get involved in this business of engineering in the first place?

Odran Madden  6:24 

I guess I was always into construction. I always liked the concept of construction. I didn't I didn't come from a family background of engineers. My father was actually a hotelier. So in two hotels. My mother came from North mayo and a lot of our her brothers and she she had a lot of brothers, they all headed off into, into construction industries across them over to the UK. So they were kind of in that and, and I guess maybe that's where it came from. But I always, I always liked the idea of construction, seeing things being built, how they were built. And I guess I wanted to just get into that was kind of always where I was headed. I never had any doubt I never had any problem filling out my SEO form or anything like that. So yeah, it was quite quite easy for me,

Dusty Rhodes  7:05 

did you ever have something as a kid where you kind of looked at it and went, I wish I did that?

Odran Madden  7:08 

Things like the Lego on the mechanical and all these kinds of things I was, I was absolutely into, you know, again, during school, maths was always a forte, you know. So I was just that way inclined to think you know,

Dusty Rhodes  7:20 

so you're in the engineering business. All right, and you're doing very, very well at it. And now you find yourself in management, how do you go from your kind of the fun side of the business, if you want to put it that way into management? What happened? Yeah, it's

Odran Madden  7:32 

a kind of a gradual process to be honest, us too, because a coffee I was I was very lucky, when you come in at a very young age, you do get to manage aspects of work quite early on in your career, even as even as a graduate engineer. So you do get to kind of manage, you know, gangs of resources, managing materials, managing aspects of a site. So you progress on to managing a small construction site onto a larger construction site and onto a few construction sites at the same time. And it just, it just continues in that way. So it's quite organic, you know, you have that responsibility early on, within engineering that you can, you can do that, certainly from a construction point of view, which is, which is where I grew up if you like, was was on sites. I mean, I came out of college, I was in any way G and civil engineering student, I did a placement with coffee on a road. And then I come back as a graduate on to another project. And I've stayed the coffee, obviously, ever since throughout my career. So I know the business very well, obviously. But I know the path of progression, right from straight through from from being a student engineer, right up to being a managing director.

Dusty Rhodes  8:37 

So being an engineer and involved in Project you do have to manage people, that's that's just part of the gig. And it's kind of led you to where you are today. What about CPD? developing your skills along the way?

Odran Madden  8:48 

Yeah, that's an absolutely massive aspect of it, I think, and hugely important in any industry, particularly engineering construction, it has evolved so much over the years, and how we do things now is actually very different than how we did it in the past, the technology has advanced so much. It I mean, when I started off, you know, we didn't have computers, you know, no mobile phones were even, or even brand new. So we used to we used to handwrite everything that time and or we draw sketches out for the people on the ground and that kind of stuff. So, so it has evolved hugely to a point now where we're, we're using BIM models, and we're going out showing our people with you know, iPads on the underground and showing showing our for what they have to build on screens now. So it's, it's completely changed, you know, particularly when it comes to water water treatment, which is a lot of our business that has evolved as technologies evolve hugely there in that regard. And you know, you think of a business like ours typical construction business, I mean, we we have a lot of process engineers, mechanical, electrical, we have environmental scientists all involved in the process. It becomes quite diverse quite quickly and and CPD is is central to that because you have to understand everything you do as a business, I think and people have to get better and better and at understanding what they're doing in education is really important. And again, I coffee, we promote a lot of that even in terms of master's programs or further diplomas or, you know, as well as things, you know, generally CPD webinars and the like with the likes of engineers, Ireland and others.

Dusty Rhodes  10:19 

Let's talk about sustainability in engineering. How important do you think with the changing world and environment that we're going through how important is sustainability these days,

Odran Madden  10:29 

it's huge, because in construction, we produce a lot of concrete and stone and, and we're digging these things out of the ground. So so we're having a huge impact on the environment, during the projects we're doing so, so to try and positively impact on that for more sustainable methods is, is very significant. And it's really important that we do that. And again, for us, the whole water cycle is really important, and how we can reuse and recycle that water. And we do that so we can take a wastewater stream and ultimately put it back into into a drinking water standards that kind of reuse and recycle and trying to do that more and more also, without chemical addition, is quite significant. And General, other civil engineering products, I mean, the likes of concrete has evolved, you know, that we're using more sustainable concrete, and things like that on road projects, it's all it's all much more sustainable Now than, than it used to be making sure that we're catching any of the pollutants that maybe runoff from roads, and we're not allowing those to go back into the environment and into the, into the land, that kind of thing is growing. And I think we're improving as a, as an industry at that quite a lot over the last, you know, more or less 20 years, certainly.

Dusty Rhodes  11:36 

And where is this being driven by is being driven by customer demand? Or is being driven by, you know, the thoughts and solutions that engineers are coming up with?

Odran Madden  11:45 

Yeah, I think it's, it's probably a mix, businesses are always trying to do more and more sustainable things, particularly in more recent years. And I suppose for business's point of view, that's, that's probably a selling point. And also, so people are trying to corner a bit of America for themselves and come up with some some good solutions, which, which customers will want. And I think it's also coming from regulation, as well as a lot of that from from you're requiring certain standards that industry must comply with, tell me about air cough tech. Yeah, so cough Tech is a very interesting business. For us. It's something we launched during COVID. Actually, we had thoughts and ideas pretty COVID. But it's something we've just launched during COVID. And what what it is, is, it's where we design, manufacture and sell wastewater treatment related technologies. So we're doing so particularly in the modular treatment space. So we're we're basically designing and building here in our offices in Sri in Galway, we can ship them off to wherever customers need them. And we have some various customers in Ireland in the UK for those. And we also true Irish water, or one of our our clients, and they have donated to with the department to water treatment plants out to Ukraine to to help with the treatment of water out there. It's a quite interesting market is quite technical, trying to design a water treatment plant in a in a 40 foot container is essentially all it is. So it's it's yeah, there's this there's definitely an interest out there in the market. It's something that we can, we can build on and we're offering quite a lot a lot a number of solutions and water quality monitoring equipment, again, is is another aspect of of the caf tech business, where we can essentially install systems that allow industry and you know, local authorities and Irish water to understand the quality of the water they have, and then be able to design more defined treatment plants to treat floodwater to get them to the right level they're at. That's something that's becoming quite common now, particularly in industry,

Dusty Rhodes  13:41 

you say that you are building water treatment into essentially a 40 foot container is this designed to be like a permanent installation or a temporary one.

Odran Madden  13:51 

So they can be essentially the plants that we've we've sent out to Ukraine or are designed as an emergency water treatment, we modified the specifications slightly to suit to Ukraine, but they can be either. So in industry, we've put them in as, as permanent, you know, situations where they're just like to, it's a simple quick add on to the back end of a production facility with three units to defense forces as well. So their idea is that they're mobilized those out to Lebanon, or whoever they're mobilizing their resources to so so they can be used in both.

Dusty Rhodes  14:24 

It sounds absolutely fascinating that you've seen this problem in the world and you kind of went okay, we need to design a water treatment plant. And somebody came up with the idea of like, well, let's fit it into this space. Walk me through that project. I mean, when somebody has the first idea, what's the first thing that you do then to start developing it?

Odran Madden  14:42 

So once we have a an idea or a requirement to do something, we just get our project teams together and and we get a bit of brainstorming going and start teasing old ideas. And it's important when we're doing these things that we have people from different different aspects of our business from the construct Inside the design side, the operation and maintenance side because we also operate almost 50 treatment plants around the country so, so we have that experience as well. So it's pulling all the right people into a room together. And having a brainstorming session, essentially, to try and come up with a design, which will work to suit to suit the requirements of customers. The first design is never the final design, when it comes to these things, when you're, when you're manufacturing something, it will evolve, you will have continuous improvement, which is again, continuous improvement is something we're all about here a coffee as well. So it's important that we keep improving everything that we're doing, when it comes to these designs.

Dusty Rhodes  15:35 

So do you do a lot of computer modelling?

Odran Madden  15:37 

Yeah, BIM is a huge aspect of our business now as it will be for most most of businesses in engineering now. So yeah, we have full BIM capability. And we will, you know, when it comes to the likes of the modular treatment plants, they'll be all designed on BIM, particularly when you're talking about clash detection and things like that. So you can know that everything will fit where it should fit, you can get access to everything down in terms of maintenance and operations as well.

Dusty Rhodes  16:02 

And then when you're constructing and putting together your first physical model, surely you're coming up with parts and pieces and ideas that just aren't available in the market that you can just buy off the shelf, how do you construct it and put the whole thing together?

Odran Madden  16:14 

Yeah. So typically, when it comes to water treatment, you will have your overall process, you'll have a process design, which is the pressure filtration followed by UV disinfection. So so they'll be the key components, and then you're, you're just figuring out what how you move the water through the system, how you control and automate and manage that. So once you have two key components, everything else is available. I mean, all the things we use are available on the market, we don't typically design things that that's not available on the market yet, you know, so these are all typically tried and trusted technologies we're using, and it's just the configuration and and how you get the efficient use of space within that small space. Did you have an affordable container?

Dusty Rhodes  16:55 

And what drove that initial idea of trying to get it into a 40 foot container? Was that something that was happening in the world? Or was it just a random idea?

Odran Madden  17:03 

Yeah, no, it's look, it's something that's out there. So we're trying to do more more of that plus, the added benefit here is we can build it in a factory environment as opposed to on a site. So when you're building it in a in a factory environment, your quality is better your health and safety standards are better, you've got a better opportunity to refine and enhance your design. And it means less traveling around for you know, construction workers typically travel around so means less time traveling the countryside for, for a lot of our people, which is obviously much, much, much better for them, and a lot of them going to try and do is make sure that we can, we can get our people home every day, you know, as always, doesn't always work, of course and construction, but that's something we like to we like to try and do anyway. So there's just a huge amount of added benefits. Plus, you know, if you're working in a in a site or in a in an industrial situation, you're in and out quickly, you know, it's plug and play type approach, you're in and out quickly. The impact and you know, that you have the disruption that you have on businesses is smaller on on customers are small. So so that's that's important as well, I think that adds value.

Dusty Rhodes  18:05 

Getting away from the coffee business, we've come back. I'm just gonna thinking about out in the world things other people have done or big construction or engineering projects that have impressed you in the last two to three years.

Odran Madden  18:21 

I think in the last two or three years, I think some of the things that have been been really impressive we saw in in China at the outset of COVID, how they managed to build hospitals in a matter of weeks, which is, which is incredible when you when you think you know how long it might take us to do that here. You'd wonder how long had they been planning it in advance, but it's very, very impressive to build hospitals fully kitted out for patients very, very quickly, in quick charts way to sign so that's that's something that is certainly registered with me. And I think it feeds back into that whole modular construction as well, that offsite fabrication and construction, because that is the way we will build quicker as a society. It'll speed up the construction time. But certainly onsite time will will speed knowing, you know, I think that's that's that's going to be some of the future for us.

Dusty Rhodes  19:09 

I can understand where where you are on site and you're building it and you're actually putting it together and the building is taking shape. What if you're literally putting it together 50 miles away, and then you have to transport it. That's that's what I'm trying to figure out. What are the advantages?

Odran Madden  19:22 

Yeah, so typically, every component you're going to build on a construction service to be transported there anyway. So depending on where your production facility is, you know, there's probably no net gain or loss in transport. So the benefits come to the quality of the product in that it's built in a much more controlled environment rather than out on a construction site possibly opened in inclement weather or poor lighting or all the other issues that might might cause quality issues. Health and safety will be a massive benefit as well. And that you're having people working in a better controlled environment so that they're not walking across rough sites or sites. Are you gonna go up and down scaffolding to the same extent or excavations or just working in a more suitable location to carry out somebody's, somebody's works. And then I think you also have the benefit of the install timeframe. So the amount of time you're on site will reduce drastically as well. And that's a great benefit to the people who are there that you don't have to have people driving the countryside to go to the construction sites. And similarly to the customers, you know, that you're not disrupting or impacting on people in the way that you might if you're building everything, everything on a site, the efficiency, the safety, the quality, all those things, then obviously, can lead to, to commercial benefits as well.

Dusty Rhodes  20:41 

Do you think that there is an acceptance of this in Ireland or resistance?

Odran Madden  20:45 

I think we're getting there. I you know, I've certainly come across resistance in Ireland, and indeed, in the UK as well, when it comes to things like precast concrete over in situ concrete, some people do have a resistance to that it's certainly changing, and it's becoming more, more and more the norm, but there are still certain claims certain people who still are like the old way, I think there's an awful lot of that in construction that will, let's just stay with the trend. And trust it, because because it works. And we don't really like change, there's certainly an element that I think is sad, we need to we need to move another little bit with that and allow the new innovative ways to advance.

Dusty Rhodes  21:19 

And how do you get this across to people? How do you convince them?

Odran Madden  21:22 

I suppose the first thing people always look for all our references, you know, so the first time is always the challenge. So So you have to build pilot projects, you have to do pilots and basically tried to convince them to say, well, this is what we've prepared. And this is how it works. And, and yeah, there'll be an element of some people taking a chance on the first one. But the more we go with this, the more people will believe in, in the whole, the off site, or the modular or the, you know, doing things a little bit differently. And, yeah, I think it's, it's growing as a concept within the industry.

Dusty Rhodes  21:50 

Have you had a situation where you are there as an engineer, and you've come up with a brilliant solution to a problem. But you're trying to explain to the client that this is new, and they are going to be the pilot? And they're kind of going well give me a reference and you go well, I can't because you're the pilot? How does it? Have you had an experience like that?

Odran Madden  22:11 

Yeah, we have quite a few, there's this on a lot of projects, we'll have that we'll try and introduce and it might be just some, some new product. But yes, clients will say, Well, this is what I specified. So this is kind of what I want. And it's understandable as well, you know, they're, they might want to take the risk, they just want the project to work. So so you can see why there is a bit of reticence in, in accepting all of these new technologies. And, you know, I completely don't all work either. So it's, it's, it is understandable. So I think clients probably need to just be a little bit more open to reviewing it in a little bit more detail. You know, sometimes it's very quick, no, whereas, you know, it possibly should be a little bit. Okay, let's, let's, let's have a proper look at this and see what a work, you know,

Dusty Rhodes  22:55 

and there's a lot of a down to personal relationships and the length of the relationship and building up trust,

Odran Madden  23:00 

there's always an element of that, for sure, you know, and if you have a trusting relationship with somebody, which is huge in any business, but for us having having that relationship and a proper collaborative type relationship is really, really important. You know, because if you're meeting meeting strangers, they're less likely to accept something that's, that's going to be a little bit different. So you do need to have strong relationships with people and and that's why I think, you know, having that repeat businesses is important to help you get stuff over the line.

Dusty Rhodes  23:27 

Coffee is a very innovative company, and you're involved in a lot of very exciting things at the moment, where do you see civil engineering going in the future?

Odran Madden  23:37 

I think civil civil engineering will be will be huge, I mean, it and it has to be a minutes across all of the sectors we we need to continue to invest in, you know, we talk about about housing and transport and energy and civil engineering is the backbone of a lot of all of those things in all the infrastructure that's needed. So so as we have a growing and changing population in society, civil engineering projects will be absolutely required, we will need to continue to develop our infrastructure to keep up with that population growth and societal demands.

Dusty Rhodes  24:10 

And what kind of projects then are coffee working on at the moment in order to do that,

Odran Madden  24:14 

we do a lot in the water, water space, so water wastewater treatment, water obstructions, as reservoirs, pipelines. And we're doing some obviously transport projects and the like, and some of those projects are typically you know, client driven and that they decide what they want and we can build them where we are looking at things ourselves is from an energy point of view are things like how we use hydrogen in society and how we can we can help in terms of some of the aspects of that so there's certainly something something there and around the whole climate side and and renewable energy even you know, we're looking at the sites we operate and seeing how we can make doors more energy efficient and and how we can use renewable energy to help with those operations sites because energy energy is the biggest element of of a site when you're operating For a treatment

Dusty Rhodes  25:02 

that's significant. And where do you see hydrogen being used?

Odran Madden  25:05 

As you think hydrogen is a huge opportunity for for Ireland, we have a huge opportunity to produce and potentially export, we're not a big industrial country. So from a demand point of view, we don't have a huge demand there, we do obviously, in transport so, so buses and trucks and the lake is the obvious one, but it's a few of which can be can be stored. So we talk about, you know, what happens when the, when the wind turbines when the wind isn't blowing, so I think hydrogen can can help there. But I also think it's an export opportunity, you know, into places like Germany, and that where they don't have the wind power that we have from the Atlantic Ocean, there's an opportunity here, and we talk about the green hydrogen, which is obviously, you know, offshore wind to produce hydrogen, and I think that's, that's where I think we can have a huge benefit there.

Dusty Rhodes  25:51 

And then as a company, then what's the biggest challenge that you're facing at the moment,

Odran Madden  25:55 

the biggest challenge at the moment, to be honest, is resource, so trying to get the people to do all the work that our customers want. So as an industry, you know, construction, and the recession is very fresh in everybody's mind still. And so if a lot of parents perhaps out there, maybe saying don't go into construction, you know, you might not have a job and a few years, but I think it's it can be a really, really sustainable industry. And I think we do struggle to try and get engineers and trades, you know, apprentices we we try to take on a lot of apprentices do a lot of work going out to schools, you know, participate in Engineers Week with engineers, Ireland and things like that, trying to trying to sell the engineering brand, if you like and trying to encourage young people into construction and engineering. And it's tough because we're competing with you know, a lot of the foreign direct investment companies in in Ireland and a big pharmaceuticals and the tech companies, they probably seem much more attractive to young school kids know. So it's important that we can try and sell Construction and Engineering as as sustainable industries, older people can have a good career out of it. I absolutely believe they can. So yeah, that's our that's probably our biggest challenge right now. We could, you know, we could do more if we had more.

Dusty Rhodes  27:02 

And once you have people involved in the company, do you find it easy to retain staff?

Odran Madden  27:08 

No, we don't, I think it's, again, due to the location and you know, we've got construction sites all over the place, people don't generally want to travel as much anymore. I know when, when I came out of college, I was over, you know, delighted to move on to a different town every every so often. It was part of the experience. I don't think it kind of happens as much anymore. So yeah, so So from that point of view, it can be challenging at Coffee we've been trying to do a lot to retain our people and put people first and everything we're trying to do but it's it's it's attracting them in the first instances is a challenge and retaining is also challenging

Dusty Rhodes  27:42 

when you say keep up because I thought it was interesting that one of the things that coffee seems to be proud of is a directly employed workforce, what is the advantage for the workforce being directly employed as as opposed to being a contractor

Odran Madden  27:56 

for us to deliver projects being having that directly employed workforce means that we can control the production of the work control safety control the quality an awful lot better with our own people? We can we've we've got a lot of people who are with us 20 years plus, you know, in the business and and, you know, does it does, it does it obviously a strong loyalty there, from the company to the people and the people that accompany which is fantastic. And we like to try and use that to bring more kind of younger people through and get the training and experience from those, those more senior people in the business. And so, so we like to have that self deliver resource capability. And it gives us as a business then a greater understanding of, of what's actually involved in the work sometimes with subcontractors, you know, we can leave them to do their work, and not fully understand it. So, so we like to, you know, work with our people to try and help improve everything we're doing.

Dusty Rhodes  28:50 

And when you're trying to get people involved in the engineering business, what's what's your pitch, when you're out to talking to the parents of kids who are kind of wondering what am I going to do with my life?

Odran Madden  28:59 

Yeah, it just taught me a couple of different aspects of it, I suppose the you know, if you're looking at people going trying to convince people to go into the trades, I mean, the trades are whisked away trades like the blood playing in the plastering, and I think they're, they're tough to try and convince people going into legs those ones but but carpentry was always good on both mechanical and electrical, our are really really good trades to go into people can build really, really good careers. And not just necessarily in construction, but when you go into any manufacturing environment as mechanical electrical trades in there as well. So there's, there's a huge opportunity, I think, for anybody going into those kinds of trades and and and it can become quite specialist. You know, we're involved in a couple ourselves in developing some of the training courses even on you know, pipelining and things like that, but it can get quite technical. When you get down into the detail of what you need to do. You're teaching people some some really, really good skills that can be transferred to different industries and and can help people travel around the world as well if they if they so choose, you know, so give them that option. Their skills that there will always be be worked for So from from from a trades point of view, I think it's, it's a fantastic, you know, set of skills to learn and an ability for people to go down that road. From an engineering point of view, then people who are engineers are problem solvers. And I've seen lots of engineers and people who are on my own class in college, have come out of engineering, and they're, you know, high up in other businesses in other sectors, because you've got that problem solving ability and being able to manage people and being you know, because you get to experience managing people from from a young age. So, yeah, so there's a huge market there. I know, engineering is very diverse, in terms of what you can, what you can get into, there's lots of opportunities.

Dusty Rhodes  30:35 

Let me wrap up by asking about engineers, Ireland, what would you say is one of the most useful things that you have gotten personally from being a member of engineers, Ireland?

Odran Madden  30:45 

I think the CPD has been great. I think also the not the kind of networking opportunities you have within within engineers, Ireland is very good as well, you know, and they have two professional titles, I think that's really important. That gives you the, the recognition internationally, you know, being a chartered engineers is a fantastic title. And that is something that is recognized internationally. So again, you know, for people who who do decide to travel, and often people do, having that Chartered Engineer status is and title is, is really, really important. So, I think there are two big things that engineers can do to do really, really well.

Dusty Rhodes  31:22 

Can you give me a specific example of something that engineers Ireland did for you the push your career forward?

Odran Madden  31:27 

I think it's that we did get a lot of encouragement to go and do that. chartership and I think that's quite positive. And I think I know what helped me, you know, hear my own career even within coffee. At that time, I think, you know, people used to clients used to look for chartered engineers to, you know, to lead their projects. And so being able to have that on my CV was important for coffee to put forward and put names forward. So, so that is that has helped you

Dusty Rhodes  31:49 

out and Madden, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you for taking the time out to chat with us today. Thanks so much to see. If you'd like to find out more about what we spoke about on the podcast today. You'll find Milton link details in the show notes or description area of our podcast on your player right now. And of course you find more information and advanced episodes on our website at engineers Ireland dot aid. Our podcast today was produced by does pod.io for engineers, Ireland and if you'd like more, do click the Follow button on your podcast player so you get access to all of our past and indeed all our future podcasts. Until next time, thank you so much for listening.

With his long and varied history at JB Barry, Liam Prendiville has tremendous perspective to offer.

Liam shares thoughts on some of his most captivating projects – ranging from decade-long roadway efforts, to public transit extensions, to cutting-edge wastewater treatment facilities. He also looks at the growing demand for environmental sustainability, a trend Liam believes will profoundly impact every sector and offer a wealth of opportunities for engineers to chase creative, innovative solutions!

Looking back on his years with JB Barry elicits understandable pride and Liam is equally excited for the horizon ahead, which includes all manner of civil, environmental, structural and transportation challenges.

We wrap up with a wish list for Dublin infrastructure and a shout-out to Engineers Ireland for sponsoring a paper Liam co-authored about the exciting possibilities open to engineers interested in pursuing the international market, as he did in the 1990s with tremendous results.

Listen below or on your podcast player! 

Topics we discussed include:

• Experiences navigating projects in Bosnia, Latvia, the Gaza Strip and elsewhere.
• The Ringsend Wastewater Treatment Plant Upgrade Project.
• How the M8 Cashel to Mitchelstown  roadway project offered new ways of managing the project process, engaging in the pre-planning stage with contractors, maximising contract negotiation and optimising communications in a way that has since been replicated.
• Why centralised, Dublin-centric transportation planning has to be expanded to include more byways that support regional travel and economies.
• The current and primary focus of JB Barry design and project management
• The journey from senior engineer into the executive ranks.
• Opportunities for engineers to provide solutions to a number of large political, economic, environmental and social impacts.
• Why Liam believes Ireland’s fortunes are very bright, with a strong economy at the tip of the spear and exciting new ways of conceiving things like housing.

Guest details

Liam is a Chartered Engineer with over 35 years’ experience. He specialises in Transportation and Traffic Engineering. For almost two decades, he has been at the helm of JB Barry and Partners, one of Ireland’s leading Consulting Engineers. They offer a wide variety of services in the Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Structural Engineering, Transportation Engineering and Safety & Health sectors and have completed numerous successful projects in each area.

Quotes

“The construction of motorways is a very small element of the carbon impact. The real impact is on yourself and myself driving around in diesel or petrol cars. You can see that the move towards electric cars has taken hold. It's certainly there.”

“Using the same footprint and the same size of site, we can treat a 60% or 70% greater volume of wastewater. Now that's using innovation to drive great results!”

“The environmental issues and climate action demand is really going to create a very exciting opportunity for engineers. It's all going to have to be engineered!”

Contact Details

https://www.jbbarry.ie/wp/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-prendiville-073b3a37/

More information

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programmes and resources on offer.

https://www.engineersireland.ie/

 

TRANSCRIPTION TEXT

For your convenience, here is a 90% accurate automated transcript of the podcast.

 

Dusty Rhodes  0:03 

Right now on Amplified the Engineers Journal Podcast, we're about to meet the managing director of JB Berry and partners, Liam Prendiville.

Liam Prendiville  0:10 

An engineer is somebody who sees a problem and their instinct is to look forward as this is the problem, how are we going to resolve it? How do we move forward?

Dusty Rhodes  0:40 

My name is Dusty Rhodes and you're welcome to Amplified the Engineers Journal podcast, where we speak with our community of creative professionals across the country about how engineers are delivering sustainable solutions for society, both now and in the future. Today, we're chatting with a man who has seen many changes in the industry over the past few decades, and is looking ahead to the future and planning for what's next as well. From JB Barry and partners, one of Ireland's leading Consulting Engineers and Civil Environmental, structural and transportation engineering. It's a pleasure to welcome managing director Liam Prendiville. How're you doing

Liam Prendiville  1:14 

I'm are doing great Dusty. Thank you very much for inviting me to do this podcast.

Dusty Rhodes  1:18 

You've enjoyed a very long and successful career with JB Barry, looking back at your time now. And I was managing director but looking back at your time when you were kind of very hands on as a senior engineer. Were there any particular projects or problems that you solved that kind of still give you satisfaction to this day?

Liam Prendiville  1:37 

Dusty, we spend our time solving problems that at the time seem very big, but they aren't drift into history. And they're all resolved. I suppose if I was to pick a project or period, I worked overseas for a number of years in the late 90s. And when the road program kicked off in the early 2000s, we got involved in the main inter urban motorway projects with the NRA. And we did some very interesting and innovative projects, both in terms of the projects themselves, and in the way that they were formulated and contracted. If I was to pick one project, I'd say Cashel to Mitchelstown Motorway was an innovative project.

Dusty Rhodes  2:16 

What was the problem there?

Liam Prendiville  2:18 

I suppose if there's anything unusual about that particular stretch of road is that it runs very close to the Galtee mountains. And that generates a drainage issue, because you get run off quite quickly off very steep slopes, and you have to be able to deal with that, you have to design for that. But the really innovative thing on the Cashel to Mitchelstownscheme was that it was developed as an early contractor involvement type scheme, which has a slightly different procurement method that was used in the past or is used since it takes the confrontational aspect to some degree out of the contractual relationship between the contractor and the client.

Dusty Rhodes  2:55 

Okay, and how had it been done before?

Liam Prendiville  2:57 

Previously, schemes were designed up to a certain level of specimen design. And it's issued out to four or five contractors to tender it post getting planning from an Bord Pleanala. Historically, the lowest paid one got the job and they were contracted, and then you moved from there. So that's fine. And it's a well used method. But in early contractor involvement, you involve the contractor earlier at the pre planning stage, so they have input in the planning stage. So you get more constructibility built into your design. And the contractual arrangement is on a cost plus basis. So you don't get that confrontation, financial confrontation.

Dusty Rhodes  3:45 

It doesn't run that way anymore?

Liam Prendiville  3:49 

No, that early contractor involvement process was used on Cashel to Mitchelstown. And it may have been used on one or two other projects. But the process reverted and back to design and build form of contracts for roads and other forms of contracts. The new government form of contract was introduced in 2007/2008. And that was put into use POST Cashel to Mitchelstown

Dusty Rhodes  4:15 

So then thinking about Cashel to Mitchelstown, what were the constraints, what were the physical constraints that you had to work with?

Liam Prendiville  4:21 

Well, the physical constraints are relatively repetitive unrolled schemes at the time, and I suppose, I think if you look at the broader picture at the time, we were developing hundreds of kilometers of motorway over a period of 10 years. So all the requirements in terms of people and plant and equipment, were all there and were used on an ongoing basis. And all the all the skills of design and construction were well practiced. And that's a very efficient way of rolling projects often reduces the risk, because all the risks have been met on previous counts, tracks and they've been ironed out. So you got to flow and that's why the NRA, they really did a very good job in developing their project management processes. And in the achievement of building the motorways, the main inter Urban's in the period from 2000 to 2010. That was a fantastic achievement.

Dusty Rhodes  5:18 

Do you think it's right though for Ireland as a country with the transport the way it's set up that all of these motorways tend to just converge on the capital?

Liam Prendiville  5:26 

Absolutely not. It's stage one of a multistage development of the island. You know, you have to look at Limerick, which would get you to Galway, Waterford, Cork, Waterford to Limerick. But if you look at the map of Ireland, there's very few links missing. Obviously, there's projects to link Dublin to Derry. And there's an A five project in Northern Ireland linked to an end to project here in in the Republic, which will open up Donegal, you'd have achieved a lot if you put those missing links into place Dusty, I think and the great thing I would focus on about motorways, and we'll probably come to it later. But motorways allow our buses to run at high frequency and at predictable timetables. It's now very feasible and very practical to get a bus from Dublin to cork or Dublin to Galway. And that's really supported by the motorway network.

Dusty Rhodes  6:28 

Do you think then that that's more efficient than trains?

Liam Prendiville  6:32 

I think it is. It's more practical than trains but they're not. They're not exclusive for one, one doesn't compete necessarily with the other. If you look at the train network in Europe, where trains travel 300 kilometers an hour now that, that's a step too far for us, possibly. But if you could certainly travel 200 kilometers an hour, and Dublin to Cork would then be you know, a little over an hour on a train that would be attractive. So there is absolutely a future for trains. But the motorway network is there and the buses are running out and they're getting a lot of passengers

Dusty Rhodes  7:11 

We're seeing a crossover as well in society at the moment there and it's specifically to do with motorways and and road transport in that we're going from petrol and diesel engines to electric engines, how do you think that's going to affect transport overall?

Liam Prendiville  7:25 

It'll be a big win for transport. Without a doubt. The fact that you know 95% of the carbon emissions in transport is from the operation of the scheme, the construction of motorways is a very small element of the carbon impact, the real impact is on yourself and myself driving around in diesel or petrol cars. You can see that the move towards electric cars has has taken hold. It's certainly there. I know that people who are looking who are in the market for a new car, or certainly looking at electric cars. And I think one of the keys to that, and I think we've discussed this before, is your ability to have a charging point in your home. I think leaving home with the expectation of finding a charging point someplace else is just, it's unnerving.

Dusty Rhodes  8:21 

Yes and no. I'm sure with the early petrol cars, it was unnerving. Leaving home when there were no petrol stations. So maybe we're going through the same thing. But you're right in that when you're looking at planning. I mean, for houses, it's not so bad, because you've got to drive by and Ireland is very much a housing kind of a country. But in the last 20 years, we've become more and more reliant on apartment blocks and apartment buildings. Not so easy. If you own an electric car. Is there any kind of retrograde works that can be done there do you think are what way should we be thinking?

Liam Prendiville  8:57 

Oh, absolutely. And certainly, all future apartment blocks. The expectation would be that all these parking spaces would have a charging point. I think that's a given. Retrofitting them costly, I'm not too sure. I'm not too sure.

Dusty Rhodes  9:16 

Let me talk about your own personal career Liam. What will you experience from because you were very successful as an engineer and a senior senior engineer, and now you're the managing director? How did you go from from working on the shop floor as it were to running the shell?

Liam Prendiville  9:32 

I suppose the career path was that JB Barry started in 1959 as a water consultant, very brave thing to do to set up a design business in 1959. The country was a very, very poor place in 1959. It was before TJ vinegar and Lamar started making the country look externally rather than internally. So we moved into structures allied to the water industry, and then we worked overseas for a while I worked myself in the 90s He's in Bosnia and Latvian Albania, worked in Gaza for a while. And in Beirut. And I must say that that working abroad, dusty taught me a lot. You're in a different environment. Yeah. We chased work in Bosnia in the early 90s. And I had no compunction to bring the Minister for this, or the Minister for that, which is something I would never have done in Ireland, because there's a structure and there's a hierarchy. And there's things you do and things you don't do. So I learned a lot there. And when the road program started in 2000, that we formed a relationship with a UK firm called Halcrow. And we changed the rules, Martin, and that's where I sort of moved from being involved in projects to chasing work in a new sector. So that was the start of the move, maybe from being completely involved in projects to getting involved in the, in the marketing.

Dusty Rhodes  10:51 

And was that something that came from somebody above? Who saw potential in you to be able to say, Graham, we want to take one of our best engineers here, and we want him to get him in on the on the pre planning stage with a potential client about what could be done? Or was it something where you said to yourself, you know, I think I would rather be out talking to people and to get them working with JB and to get new projects in for the firm. You know,

Liam Prendiville  11:14 

all of these things, there's a lot of a lot of luck and a lot of false steps. And it's very hard to post analyze it. And it depends who writes the history, as you know, I might write it one way, and other people might see it completely differently. Well, actually, what happened, I suppose is that working overseas, we actually spent time looking for work as well as doing it. So that gave me exposure to that overseas work came to an abrupt halt because one of our partners struggled financially. And we were no longer involved in that. And it coincided with the starting of the main entrance, carbon road network. And it was quite clear that they needed, they needed more people involved, they're going possibly from spending 200 million a year on the road program to spending in 2007, they spent 1.8 billion, so you can't increase the spend without it involved involving more and more people. So there was opportunity there, the market was growing, I knew a couple of people in the market. And the guys running the company at the time, were happy to let me chase it the load, we spent a lot of time chasing the market.

Dusty Rhodes  12:23 

And at one stage did you say to yourself, I think I could offer a lot as the managing director of this firm, and I could bring the firm certain places and improve it. And did you make it your mission to say, I would like that job?

Liam Prendiville  12:36 

Absolutely not no. I go back to what I said previously, I commend those 50 people like it's more like it's more like a family than a corporation. And a lot of our competitors, dusty are large global companies. We have companies here in Ireland that have a presence all over the world. Some of them have employee levels of 7080 90 100,000 people worldwide. So they run a very corporate affair they have, you know, they have very identified structures, whereas 90% of our work is in Ireland. And as a result, the scale of our operation moves with the cycle of expenditure in Ireland. And it's looks as if it's a 10 year cycle, I'm afraid.

Dusty Rhodes  13:25 

Speaking of the work that you're involved in, you're involved in a lot of disciplines. Is there is there any one that you're particularly busy with the water

Liam Prendiville  13:33 

design element and project management in the water space, which is water supply, wastewater collection and treatment, stormwater and flooding, that's remained a constant throughout the history of the company, and that's still very vibrant. And areas what has changed in the market is water there. They're actually using, funnily enough, some ECI project early contractor involvement projects going back to Capitol two meters down. So So that's very vibrant, and consistent. The transportation sector this changes within that we're still have a lot of highways work, but there's a big move towards active travel and public transport, which is, you know, supporting the climate change agenda and society is changing its direction on transport. I mean, there's absolutely no doubt about that. And the younger generations will change it even more rapidly. And I suppose energy is probably the exciting thing at the moment if you were to look at it you know, the generation distribution and use use of energy has to be the most exciting thing that's going on at the moment with

Dusty Rhodes  14:42 

the water it must be disappointed when you're in volved in large projects and working in large projects because what is usually hidden away and most people don't see it, you know, when you're out kind of talking to people what would you love to scream at them to go this is the project I did

Liam Prendiville  15:00 

think sometimes I think sometimes dusty, you just have to accept that you're doing a good job and get some satisfaction from that.

Dusty Rhodes  15:06 

I know Come on, I give you an opportunity now to to blow your trumpet. Tell me one that you Oh, well,

Liam Prendiville  15:11 

okay. Okay, if you want to? Yes, please, we're at the moment, I mean, we've done a large number of wastewater treatment plants. At the moment, we're involved in the rings and the upgrade of the rings and wastewater treatment plant, which is the water treatment plant for the dump the greater Dublin area. So we're increasing the capacity of that plant dramatically. And that's an ongoing process it's going to go on for it has been going on and will go on for a total of maybe 10 or 12 years. It's an existing operating plant that's treating a large percentage of the wastewater from the Dublin area. And we've teamed up with other companies, one of them brings a specialist treatment process with it, which means that using the same footprint using the same size of site, we can treat 60 or 70%, greater volume of wastewater. Now that's using innovation, to drive great results,

Dusty Rhodes  16:09 

keeping yourself up to speed actually on changing technology and everything and processes, as you say abroad. And things that are happening, how do you keep yourself up to date and stay current with the latest engineering trends?

Liam Prendiville  16:22 

Well, I suppose one of the things we've always done from a very early age stage in the company is we've we've formed joint ventures with international companies as required. And with people with either, if we need additional resources, it's one type of partner we need. And if it's a particular expertise in an area, it's another. So the example will be royal haskoning DHV, who have brought the process to earnings, and we have a relationship with them, we have a joint venture with them. When we entered the roads market, it was the Halcro group from the UK, because they had they had expertise in the roads market, they also had capacity. So we had local knowledge and good reputation here. It's a small island here. You know, if you have a good reputation, it travels from one sector to another, as you know, I'd love to

Dusty Rhodes  17:16 

ask you, what is lineup for JB berry over the next couple of years? Is that something you talk about? Or is it top secret?

Liam Prendiville  17:23 

No, no, it's very clear. To me, I mean, it's been in the news for the last week. But it's been top of the agenda for a while, there's been a lot of factors impacting on our business and on society at large, like Brexit, Brexit has created a changed environment. COVID obviously has a very significant impact on the way we think, created an environment where a lot of change that might not have been possible is now possible, maybe there's material supply disruption driven, possibly by the war war in Eastern Europe, there's other factors in there maybe as well as a lot of political change in Ireland, and there's going to be more political change. But the environmental issues and climate action demands is really going to create a very exciting opportunity for engineers, it's all going to have to be engineered the provision of electricity, the distribution of electricity, the reduction of carbon emissions in all the sectors mean, you can see the political wrangling over whether it was 20% or 30%, for agriculture, and the impact on transport as transport is in there in a big way. And we're doing a lot of work there already, but it's only going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

 

Dusty Rhodes  18:35 

Well, let me ask you, then I'm sure you see that movie Back to the Future. They filmed it in the 80s. But they were imagining what life would be like in 2020 or something like that. Alright, and they actually got a lot of stuff, right? The big screen TV and there are there are so many other things recite I can't remember order. But I remember watching the movie like only recently kind of gone. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. So in your own mind looking 20 years ahead, what is it going to look like?

Liam Prendiville  19:02 

Wow, that's a really good question, isn't it? It's the only way I can imagine is by going back 20 years, and looking at what I thought Ireland would be like in 2020. And, you know, Did I did I see electric cars on the road? And the uptake of those? I didn't? Absolutely not. Did I see the absolute conversion of everybody to the reality of climate change? I didn't see that. So looking forward 20 years. Obviously, there'll be bumps on the road. But certainly, on this island. I think it's a fantastic place to live. I think we have a novel lot of things going for us. Being an island has a lot of advantages that keeps you out of the way of a lot of things. Our climate, our climate is better than you could dream for. I think, even though I suppose it gives us the opportunity to complain about the rain as well, which we like to do. We like to have something to complain about. But and also, like if you look at the growth in, in wealth in the country, which in itself probably doesn't actually make people happier. But that's well beyond engineering. But like, if you take the tax taken in 1980, when I started in Ireland was 3 billion a year, and now it's heading for at, you know, we're a wealthy country. We don't have great historical wealth. We have, we have a vibrant economy. So I think the future for Ireland is dramatically, I think, 20 years time, I think it could be very positive.

Dusty Rhodes  20:38 

We have a housing shortage at the moment, do you think that Irish minds are going to change about how we look at housing? Because traditionally, I think it's going back to the famine, okay. Because people didn't own their own houses, and they've could have been thrown off the land. And it's been in the psyche, since I must own my own home, and it must be a home. Whereas that's changing lately, do you think we're going to get to a stage where people will think about more communal ways of living, possibly with ways where they don't actually own the roof over their head, but they do have tenancy rights?

Liam Prendiville  21:14 

Yeah, it's a very, very interesting question. And I think you've hit the nail on the head with the tenancy rights thing, possibly. You know, there are other models over ours, and you go back to our history, and you're right, our history drives our thought process. We'd like to own our own house, it gives us a security, it does make society stable as well, maybe. But the French model, if you wanted to go go there, a lot of people have lifetime tenancies in, in apartments. And that's another model. I think, as generations move, you get change in people's approach, I have no doubt that we can change people's approach, we have a private client business, which is probably 20% of what we do, we probably at any one time have between seven and 8000 residential units, at various stages of development from pre planning to in planning to construction. And we're not a big player in that market. There are much, much bigger players here. So there are a lot of residential units being developed, get those to the construction, some of the challenges I mentioned earlier, supply of materials. Inflation, may impact on the development of those. But I think you're right a model of model of ownership is probably the biggest element of it. Now you're after drifted me a long way from engineering. Now let's go back to put blocks on blocks at exactly,

Dusty Rhodes  22:45 

I was just thinking join the conversation too much. Actually, I kind of was gonna go back to transport because we spoke about the motorways puts specifically in Dublin, because it's a growing city they're talking about and they have been talking about a long time about extending the Dart and then the tram out to the airport. Is there anything when you look at that particular city that you think I've got a good idea for that or what's missing,

Liam Prendiville  23:13 

I think they're on a good journey, I think, a good good bit down the road, I think the phone the folders, probably the key to public transport. For me anyway. Because you can see, you get access immediately to where public transport is. And if the boss is going to be at your stop in five minutes, you can see it. And that changes the game completely for me, you know. So the frequency of buses now. I'm fortunate enough, I live close to the M 11. Quality bus corridor we did work on on that bus corridor 20 years ago. And bus frequency is so high that you just rock up at the bus stop and get the next bus get into town just as fast are faster than I can drive it. So I think everyone will convert to public transport. Now. There are weak spots, maybe in the network. But there's a lot of work being done out of the box connects. And obviously the loose is a success story. We're doing a nice project on the loose actually. We're working on an extension from bluebridge to Thingol. And that will bring you up to the 50 on the green line. Obviously, the Metro is a big project that's that's out there as well.

Dusty Rhodes  24:26 

How's that Lewis project going? Because you're going through some very highly populated areas. That's

Liam Prendiville  24:31 

it's gone really well. Yeah, it's called fantastically T IO drunk driving the project. We have a team in conjunction with a company called Aegis. We're a French rail company. And the project is what we now call a BIM project. Okay, so, BIM is going from ink ink and paper was in the 80s and 80s and moving towards computers plotters. And five years time, we won't even mention the fact that it's been but if it is an interesting development of design, because you can actually see, you can see conflicts are a preliminary design stage rather than a detailed design stage of much more information much earlier on. So it should improve cost efficiency on construction? Or will, whether it's a higher level of design at an earlier stage,

Dusty Rhodes  25:26 

are you using an existing rail track that is going out towards Fingal? Or do you have to create a new one? A new one? Is that a big headache?

Liam Prendiville  25:38 

It's challenging. Yeah, it's a challenge. But I suppose a lot of schemes that were involved in certainly linear schemes, like road schemes or public transport schemes, once you're on a new route, you're interacting with a lot of stakeholders, you're impacting on a lot of people's property, and we have a relationship with our own property with private property. It goes back to what you discussed earlier. We have a lot of strong property rights. I'm not arguing against that.

Dusty Rhodes  26:05 

What was that that'd be for somebody else to worry about.

Liam Prendiville  26:07 

But it's all about, it's all about bringing a project through the process. You know, I suppose if there was a challenge, in the process at the moment is probably getting planning can be can be a challenge, the planning process is challenged. But again, it's a process. Yeah, you just have to go through and get there. Let me ask you about engineers,

Dusty Rhodes  26:30 

Ireland, because it's a great organization, that it's not companies that are that make up the organization, its people. And it's interesting to me to see that even people have the highest levels of business in the country, our members. I'm just wondering, what's one of the most useful things that you personally have gotten out of being with engineers Ireland.

Liam Prendiville  26:54 

Years ago, I would have been involved as I said earlier in some of the international work, and we did some work in in Bosnia. And engineers Ireland invited me to do a paper which I did in conjunction with guys from the SBI. And that drove me in a certain direction as well. It's not something that I would naturally hold my hand up for back in 1990. Odd. But that opened up an avenue for me in describing what we were doing, the benefits of market return, informing other people of the potential for us to sell things overseas.

Dusty Rhodes  27:31 

Liam Prendiville. Thank you so much for taking time to chat with us today on the podcast.

Liam Prendiville  27:36 

docilely. Thank you very much. I enjoyed it.

Dusty Rhodes  27:38 

If you'd like to find out more about what we spoke about on the podcast today, you'll find notes and link details in the show notes or description area of the podcast in the podcast player right now. Of course, you'll find more information and advanced episodes on our website at engineers Ireland Dudley. Our engineers at journal amplified podcast is produced by dust pod.io for engineers ireland? If you'd like more episodes, just click the Follow button on your podcast player so you get access to all of our past and future shows automatically. Until next time from myself Dusty Rhodes, thank you so much for listening.

Unknown Speaker  28:13 

Take care.