Message from CEO, Paul Tierney
Dear Members,
I hope January has been a positive start to the year for you, both personally and professionally. The Christmas break, now a distant memory, offers a rare opportunity to step away from our day-to-day challenges and spend meaningful, uninterrupted time with family and friends — an important time to enjoy and recharge.
We are pleased with the progress made for MMC initiatives in the Draft Programme for Government. Following our Pre-Budget Submission and Programme for Government proposal, several key asks have been acknowledged. While further engagement with the Government is needed to finalise the details, the following announcements are worth highlighting:
Setup a MMC Innovation Fund via the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), to directly fund new housing factories, and the expansion of existed factories.
Leverage state capital investment to promote MMC and set binding targets for MMC use in at least 25% of all State backed housing.
Overhaul and resource the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) to ensure all-encompassing regulatory certs are issued in a timely manner, harmonising Irish regulations with EU regulations to open up new market opportunities.
Promote the use of timber in new buildings and ensure multi storey timber frame residential units can be built.
Increase co-ordination and additional resourcing of organisations’ training programmes; and develop and fund more dedicated apprenticeship and internship options for MMC in housing.
Introduce a single stage approval process for all standardised Social Housing and affordable housing projects
Introduce a National Housing Procurement Strategy to support housing standardisation and use state spending and regulatory power to reduce costs delays.
We’ll continue to work closely with the Government to ensure these initiatives are successfully implemented and impactful for our members.
Member Engagement
Anna has had valuable conversations with many of you through Teams calls. Your feedback plays a vital role in shaping MMC Ireland’s future and ensuring we remain member-driven. MMC Ireland is your organisation and your participation and engagement is what makes us the organisation we are today. If you haven’t had a chance to connect with Anna yet, I encourage you to reach out directly at anna@mmcireland.com or call her on 087-7144289.
Upcoming Announcements
February will be an important month for MMC developments:
The Expression of Interest for the Department of Education’s 3D Modular Framework closes on February 5th.
We are meeting with the Department of Housing ahead of their second workshop on February 26th to review the progress of their standardized housing program and specifically to review their draft 3D volumetric designs.
The new design team for the HSE’s current and future capital works will be announced soon. Their role will be critical in shaping the future MMC healthcare landscape, and we’ll meet with them promptly to highlight the expertise and capacity of our members.
Construct Innovate is advancing efforts to standardise manufacturing and construction details for the steel frame sector. We are one of the key stakeholders in this important initiative. They will present their progress and plans on this initiative at our National Conference in March.
National Conference
This year’s National Conference will take place on March 11th and 12th, concluding with lunch at 2 p.m. on day two. We’re finalising the details, but it promises to be an excellent event with insightful presentations and engaging panel debates.
All exhibition spaces are sold out. Anna will be in touch soon to help organise your free ticket and provide the discount code for additional member tickets. A networking drinks event at the close of day one, a highlight last year, will return and I encourage you to secure your tickets as soon as possible through Anna.
As always, please feel free to contact me directly at paultierney@mmcireland.com or 086-2433560 if there’s anything you need. I look forward to seeing you at the National Conference in March, if not before.
Paul
