Message from CEO, Paul Tierney
Good evening all,
As Halloween Eve closes in, I hope those of you taking a mid-term break are enjoying the autumn festivities.
WORKING GROUPS
October saw the recommencement of our three working groups after a brief summer hiatus. We have some important topics that the working group Chairs are leading on. Firstly, the Policy Support & Integration working group is putting together a number of recommendations for the future of government MMC procurement. We are launching a whiteboard on the members’ portal where your suggestions will be collated and presented to the government and EY, who are leading on this important exercise. Separately, MMC Ireland is one of the strategic partners for the new Skillnet MMC Accelerate initiative and the Awareness & Education working group has been working closely with Skillnet and CITA, assisting in the design and implementation of this programme. The Technical Guidance & Knowledge Sharing working group has led on MMC Ireland’s first members’ Technical Catalogue. This will be launched at our next in-person member’s event on November 8th in Cairn Homes’ exciting development in Seven Mills (further details below). Our plan is to print this catalogue annually and the digital version is now live on the website. This is an important body of work for the organisation, acting as a point of reference for Government and other third parties who enquire about the capabilities and capacity of our member companies, across various sectors. We encourage all members to keep this dynamic catalogue up-to-date. I would like to thank all members of the working groups and, in particular, the three Chairs who are leading on these initiatives, Pat Kirwan, Dick Clerkin and Ronan Lonergan. As always, members are encouraged to join any of the working groups that are relevant to the interest of their company.
NATIONAL CONFERENCE 2025 – Save the date
The planning for MMC Ireland’s National Conference 2025 has already started and next year’s event will take place in The Johnstown Estate on March 11th and 12th. We will be reaching out to you over the next couple of months to ask for your opinion around topics you would like covered at the conference. We have moved it forward in the calendar as we want to be the first conference in the summer calendar and ensure we lead on setting our agenda.
FUNDING
Did you know there are approximately 300 grants available to companies in Ireland? Neither did we…
Earlier this month we had an opening discussion with a government-supported body, exploring putting together a simple and efficient funding route map for MMC Ireland members, identifying the top five funding initiatives available and putting in place the support/resources needed to simplify the application process. This is a priority for our members, which makes it a priority for me as your CEO. We expect this to be live early in the New Year, and will update you on progress in due course.
MEMBER EVENTS
November: We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on November 8th at Cairn’s new development in Seven Mills. This is a hugely exciting development where Cairn are delivering a new town for Dublin in Dublin 22. Many thanks to Ronan Lonergan for organising this for us. Also, Daithi Downey will also be in attendance where he will discuss the findings and recommendations from the NESC Report, ‘Boosting Ireland’s Housing Supply: Modern Methods of Construction’, which has been adopted by the government. MMC Ireland members have contributed hugely to this report and we have been acknowledged by NESC as a key contributor. Daithi will also take questions from our members on what this means for the future of NESC in the country.
December: On Thursday December 12th we will be holding an event in the Head Office of EY in Harcourt Street, Dublin. At this event we will have a presentation from EY on their recent MMC Skills Report and their recent appointment to implement the recommendations. Our feedback here is vitally important and we are one of the key stakeholders on the working group. We will also discuss Government Procurement of MMC and the work our Policy Group is doing here will feed into this. This will be followed by some Christmas Networking food and drinks across the road where we hope to catch up with as many as you as possible in a more informal way.
NEW ADDITION TO THE MMC IRELAND TEAM:
Lastly, we will be announcing a new addition to the team next week. Our new team member will be responsible for all member activities whilst Katie focuses on the National Conference in March and the MMC stage at the National Construction Summit in April. As our membership has doubled over the past year, we will be holding a lot more member events throughout 2025 to allow you to meet up face-to-face more frequently and to facilitate more member networking and collaboration.
As always, I am available on paultierney@mmcireland.com
Paul
