TALKING TO… KEVIN HOLLINGSWORTH

The new SCSI President talks about enforcement of building regulations and the need for an industry-wide cultural shift

Can you tell me a bit about your background?
I set up Omega Surveying Services in 2013. At the start, it was just me and a laptop in the baby’s room at home. My first employee was Christopher Duffy who started out on a JobBridge scheme and who’s still with me today, working as a chartered surveyor. Back then, we did a lot of work for NAMA around remediating developments. That work obviously had a timespan and largely finished up in 2018. Since then, the company has moved towards commercial work. Today, we have 15 surveyors and eight are chartered. I think the biggest and most daunting step was going from the box room and the laptop to actually getting an office and that first employee – it was a big risk and meant moving into a totally different realm of responsibility and risk. Four years ago Omega got acquired by Murphy Geospatial which allowed us to further expand and just this year, Murphy Geospatial was acquired by Woolpert.

What do you attribute the company’s growth to?
Our growth has always been reputational-based. Good work generates more work; people will refer you and you’ll get repeat business based on successful projects. We don’t take on work that we can’t do properly because of a desire to protect our reputation and standing in the industry as an honest arbitrator. We’ve always been turning away work more so than chasing it.

Is turning down work difficult?
It’s difficult when you’ve committed to a client and an opportunity comes along that might be more financially beneficial. Obviously you go with the commitments you’ve made. I’d love to be able to take on everything, not just because it would be financially positive but sometimes projects provide new learning opportunities and experiences for staff. We strive to give our graduates the best possible training to ensure they have the best chance of progressing their career and becoming chartered surveyors. Our growth has also been constrained or enhanced by the amount of graduates that are available on the market.

Following the crash, construction became known as quite a toxic industry. Not many people were going into the building surveying course in Dundalk, of which there is only one in the country. Thankfully, a new post-grad course started recently, which is seeing an extra 20 graduates each year. That’s been a big change for us; it’s allowed us to take on three graduates this year, which in turn has allowed us to expand. There’s a lot of work out there and we want to be in a position to take it on.

How is business?
Business is good, we’re very busy. The Legacy Defects Scheme opened for applications last year and we have a number of management companies that we would have worked with historically over the past 10 years now coming to us wanting to avail of the Scheme. I have a background when it comes to legacy defects; I was on the Government expert working group that wrote the Defects in Apartments report. I was also at the code of practice working group that defined how all these legacy defects would be remediated. These management companies want us to assist them in carrying out fire safety assessments and risk assessments to apply for the Scheme. That’s keeping us very busy along with our general commercial work.

As the new President of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI), what do you see as the biggest issues facing the construction industry?
Housing is the absolute key one. Last year the number of houses built reached 33,000. The target was 29,000 which was great, but those targets may be out of date. One of the key issues hampering development is planning. The tangible cost of an An Bord Pleanala review adds a few thousand onto the cost of every property. Soft costs are also an issue. In the SCSI, we have called for a pausing of development levies and anything that can bring soft costs down. The introduction of a land register akin to the property price register would bring transparency to the market. A reduction in capital gains tax for land used for housing from 33% to 8% would also give an incentive to the owners of the land to release it.

What’s your ambition as President?
To attract many more students into surveying courses. I’m working with the Executive to try and get out into schools to outline the attractiveness of the surveying profession and how broad it is. There’s really something in it for everyone. It’s also a well-paid profession, which is something I don’t think a lot of people are aware of. With my own discipline, which is building surveying, there’s only one course in the country in Dundalk. It’s great having the additional postgrad course, but I would like an additional entry route, perhaps an apprenticeship or even another course in another university to broaden the profession.
There’s an urgent need for more building surveyors across the country. Building control departments are attempting to recruit building control officers and the building surveying profession is one of the key places where they try to recruit. So it’s not just commercial entities like my own company looking for graduates; there’s a whole host of local authorities looking to take on building surveyors. We’re just one of three professions that can actually certify buildings as the assigned certifier. There is so much demand for the profession and it’s such a fulfilling career. I want to get that message out there.

What is your opinion on Ireland’s approach to the enforcement of building regulations?
Building regulations in themselves have always been quite robust. Internationally, the standards we require are quite high. The longstanding problem is the oversight of the application of those regulations and that’s what the regime of self-certification brought in in 1992. I’ve always commended the Government for starting the process of bringing in the building control amendment regulations to reinforce the existing framework and putting in place the assigned certifier. However, the local authority building control officer still has a very important role to undertake. The way I like to describe it is the assigned certifier is private security, while the building control officer is the Gardai, the ultimate authority. At the moment, local authorities are only required to inspect between 12% and 15% of new buildings notified to them. In 2022 only two local authorities – Mayo and Sligo – didn’t meet this low bar while several others just reached the minimum target.

The minimum targets of 12-15% of buildings being inspected is, in my opinion, not enough. Building control departments are loss-making; last year, the building control function cost €20 million but only got in €5 million in fees nationally. That’s a huge cost for any local authority to bear. There’s no impetus for them to achieve anything higher.

Some local authorities are really making an effort though – Dublin City Council inspects upwards of 80% of buildings, while Kildare and Meath are close behind. However, there are others that aren’t even making the 12-15%. It’s down to a lack of funding, so I would be advocating for increased Exchequer funding to ensure that at least 100% of our high-risk buildings are inspected nationally.

What other issues are you focusing on in your term as President?
I think there’s naturally been a lot of focus on legacy defects, but new issues will continue to arise if building regulations aren’t continually enforced. By employing MMC, such as offsite construction, builders hope to construct better, more cost-efficient homes and offices. However, MMC have to be carried out strictly in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions.

Our members have identified some serious quality control issues with regard to some MMC products, including timber not being protected from the weather when it arrives on site and mould growing on bathroom pods. Unless these supply chain shortcomings are addressed now, these and other issues, are going to become systemic problems in the next decade.

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Michael McDonnell Managing Editor of Irish Construction Industry Magazine & Plan Magazine

Email: michael@irishconstruction.com      WWW.MCDMEDIA.IE