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At present the Irish construction industry is facing one of its most uncertain and challenging periods and will see major cuts in all areas of the economy in 2012. Despite this, Ireland pushes forward in sustainability initiatives with the Government ruling that environmentally-friendly policies are to get priority in competing for State contracts worth up to €16 billion a year. This and further initiatives are in place, so as to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20% by the year 2020. By the end of 2018 the public sector must own or rent only buildings with high energy-saving standards and promote the conversion of existing buildings to "nearly zero" standards. Furthermore, the "retro-fitting" of Ireland's existing building stock will challenge Ireland to meet carbon targets. This paper outlines how Building Information Modelling (BIM) can be utilised on future and present public works projects in Ireland to significantly assist the Irish Government in managing a low carbon energy future. The paper will focus on the application of a sophisticated BIM model in helping to predict the performance of buildings or assess retrofit/upgrade options in managing low carbon construction. The authors' data collation methodology involved the testing and analysis of a BIM model for a public works project, used during a four day workshop in late 2011. The workshop proved a success and provided the platform for the Irish Government to see first-hand, how a collaborative BIM model used on a public works projects could provide a low carbon future for both future and existing building stock.

The Capital Works Management Framework (CWMF) is a structure that has been developed to deliver the Irish government's objectives in relation to public sector construction procurement reform. This research provides practical guidance and assistance for construction cost professionals in carrying out Whole Life Cycle Cost Analysis (WLCCA) and producing Life Cycle Cost Models(LCCMs) under the CWMF. The research outlines how LCCA calculations can be carried out for cost planning purposes and recommends a standard methodology for presenting LCCMs under the CWMF. The CWMF states that Whole Life Costs (WLC) are an important consideration throughout the design process and should be integrated at each stage of the cost planning process. This research investigated a number of international methodologies and standard method of measurements on Life Cycle Costing (LCC) along with a literature review of journal papers, professional publications and research articles. A template was subsequently developed that can be used to aid construction professionals in producing LCCMs. The template puts forward a standard response to the CWMF and was produced in consultation with one of the international methodologies in LCC. A WLCCA case study of a secondary school building in Dublin, Ireland was carried out using the template outlined above. The WLCCA was prepared to provide an example of how LCCA could be carried out and presented in accordance with Ireland's CWMF. The resultant WLCCA outlines a sixty year analysis of the school considering the proportional present value breakdown between investment costs and operational costs. The construction costs represent 42% of the overall present value WLC of the building over a 60 year study period.

The main aim of this paper is to develop the early case for a new Competence Centre dedicated to industry led research in the Irish construction industry. It incorporates the results of a survey carried out by the Construction IT Aliance (CITA) and also identifies similiar centres carrying out industry led research around the world. Results from the survey show a clear support for the establishment of such a centre in Ireland and, in particular, a strong interest in Building Information Modelling (BIM) as a immediate priority research area. BIM is having a profound effect worldwide on the construction industry. The development and adoption of BIM technologies is in parallel with other major changes relating to project procurement approaches, such as Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), and the general sustainability agenda. Although slow to take off in Ireland to-date, BIM is becoming extremely relevant in other countries, with over 50% adoption in the United States and an average of 36% in Europe. The authors argue that a government funded Competence Centre will facilitate the Irish construction industry in re-establishing itself, domestically and internationally as a competitive entity.

This paper reflects on the development, activities and deliverables of the Construction IT Alliance in the Republic of Ireland. This alliance was formed in 2001 with the vision of harnessing the potential of information and communication technologies in the Irish construction sector. CITA is a prime example of academia-industry-government collaboration in Ireland. A key driver in the development of CITA is the need to increase the extent of IT knowledge within the Irish construction sector. Membership of CITA includes leading architectural, engineering, surveying, management, construction, supplier, IT and academic organisations. The leading academic institutions in CITA are the Technological University of Dublin (DIT) and the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT). CITA has also received the backing of the Department of the Environment and Local Government (DoE&LG) and the influential Forum for the Construction Industry (FCI). The structure and work of other similar bodies, particularly Construct IT in the UK, were taken into account in the development of CITA. CITA activities include the development and maintenance of a website; the hosting of bi-annual members meetings with expert guest speakers; and the formation and encouragement of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) to address particular issues.

As part of their Future of Construction initiative in 2018 the World Economic Forum published an action plan to accelerate Building Information Modelling adoption. The WEF report highlighted actions that companies, industry organisations and governments are advised to implement to accelerate BIM adoption and better capitalise on delivering better project outcomes. According the authors of the report BIM is seen as the centrepiece of the construction industry's digital transformation, however they acknowledged that BIM adoption globally remain slow. Anecdotal experience would suggest that BIM usage in Ireland is also very low and that a similar initiative or an adaptation of the WEF BIM Adoption Circle would be applicable to driving the digital transition programme in the Irish construction industry. This paper highlights the actions that companies, industry organisations and governments are advised to implement in order to contribute to the acceleration of BIM adoption. The authors document the results of a consultative survey of representative stakeholders in Ireland in mid 2019. This survey was designed to investigate the relevance of some twenty seven specific actions identified by the WEF to drive digital transition in the Irish construction industry.

Like most sectors in today's working world, construction businesses are challenged to work in an increasingly digitised world with sophisticated demands from intelligent clients. So much has been written about the inefficiencies of the construction industry, its fragmentation, lack of collaboration, low margins, adversarial pricing, poor productivity, financial fragility, lack of research and development, poor industry image and relatively weak use of digital solutions. The Irish government recognises the importance of digital innovation to address many of the challenges the construction industry faces. With recent high profile reports of escalating spend on signature public sector projects and weak productivity performance in the sector, the Irish government is seeking out new strategies that will help create improved value for money for publically funded projects including stimulating economic growth and competitiveness in the sector. One such approach is the creation of a new Centre of Excellence for digital construction to help encourage both the government and industry to work together to create a more agile and innovation-rich sector, create jobs and improve project outcomes for public sector projects. In this paper, the authors will examine the current context surrounding this recommendation, in particular the vision of Ireland's National BIM Council to instigate the formation of a national central resource to support the rollout of digital tools and processes in Ireland. This paper serves mainly as a relatively highlevel early desktop study that will document the missions and activities of particular international exemplars of such centres. The paper also seeks to potentially influence representative groupings in Ireland that have been charged with the responsibility of recommending to the Irish government the likely implementation model and funding mechanism that will help drive a sustained transformational programme for the Irish construction industry. The authors did not seek to consult with these stakeholders directly in preparation of this paper given the ongoing consultations at governmental level taking place in mid-2019.

In 2017, the BIM Innovation Capability Programme team applied five macro BIM maturity conceptual models to capture the capability of the Irish construction industry and assess its BIM maturity. The results found that while Ireland is mature for modelling processes, it is less developed with regards to collaboration processes and policies. Ireland also ranked poorly when it came to regulatory frameworks, measurements and benchmarks compared to a number of countries which also applied the same conceptual models. At the time, the findings highlighted that Ireland's diffusion dynamic was middle out, meaning that larger organisations or industry associations were pushing the BIM agenda and not the government, which had primarily chosen a passive approach with little or no assertive activities. The results also showed that the educational institutes had a much higher BIM diffusion compared to policymakers. Since the initial findings of the macro BIM maturity study, the Irish government has endorsed many initiatives, such as the announcement of a strategy to increase the use of digital technology in crucial public works projects, as well as contributing to the Digital Construction Transition Roadmap 2018-2021. As a result of Ireland's growing market for BIM and the recent public sector requirements, it was decided to reapply the five macro BIM maturity conceptual models to investigate if this has impacted on Ireland's BIM diffusion dynamic and levels. The results will be complemented through a selection of research initiatives which the researchers have undertaken to further establish Ireland's BIM maturity in 2019. It is hoped that the results from this exercise will inform the Irish government and AEC sector of the key requirements to ensure wider adoption of BIM in Ireland.

The Construction IT Alliance (CitA) recently published its Global BIM Study as part of its BIM Innovation Capability Programme (BICP). The study sought to identify how BIM was being currently addressed in 27 countries across the globe. The study sought to identify the presence of three key ingredients in these countries: 1. Regulatory requirement for BIM 2. Champions driving BIM 3. Noteworthy publications The report identified a number of recurring themes that would help to shape Ireland's BIM programme. The report concluded that Ireland should adopt a programme of partnership between industry and the Irish Government in order to affect a cultural shift in attitudes to collaborative working.

The Irish Government has requested that Enterprise Ireland, an organisation responsible for the development and growth of Irish enterprises in world markets to actively promote the use of BIM in Ireland. This promotion has taken the form of an opportunity for Enterprise Ireland clients to apply for a grant under their BIM Enable and BIM Implementation schemes and also through their funding of the BIM Innovation Capability Programme (BICP) of Ireland. The BICP is a two-year project (2016-2018) which seeks to capture the capability of the Irish Construction Industry and the Higher Education Institutes to respond to the increased requirement for BIM in Ireland. One of the primary responsibilities of the BICP research team is to collate data to assist the Irish National BIM Council (NBC) in the formulation of a National BIM Roadmap. To achieve this a global and local BIM study was undertaken in 2016. This involved extensive desk-top based research exploring the value proposition behind what governments and professional bodies are doing to advance BIM in their respective countries. The research identified a number of common themes or pillars that Ireland will need to further address before a roadmap is formally disseminated. After exploration of these pillars, within an Irish context, it was found that despite a lack of standards and contractual frameworks, it has not prevented the industry from deploying BIM on Irish projects

BIM is perhaps the most topical issue in construction throughout the world at present, as it is associated with solving so many of the present concerns in our industry. Our lack of housing, shortage of skilled workers, poor document management, overrunning project budgets and sustainability challenges are just a few of the challenges that BIM promises to assist in solving. The increasing importance of "digitisation" to modern construction and engineering businesses is becoming more apparent as more and more clients are explicitly asking for BIM in the design and delivery of new facilities and infrastructure. This report provides a snapshot of BIM in Ireland in 2017. The report demonstrates the interest that BIM has gained in Ireland in recent years and the remarkable progress that Ireland has made in building BIM capability in recent years. The emergence of a BIM programme in the UK provided a focus for our industry in recent years. This report will demonstrate that Ireland's BIM journey is well underway and in many respects we are as mature as any country in the developed world when it comes to BIM proficiency and diffusion. Our industry, public sector contracting authorities, educators and in particular Enterprise Ireland have responded in a very positive way. A multitude of initiatives are presented in this report, which include the important work of the CitA BIM Innovation Capability Programme (BICP) in Ireland, the National BIM Council and the recent publication of the Government's position paper on a public sector BIM adoption strategy. The particular responses by many of our tier 1 contractors, specialist M&E contractors, representative institutions and our higher education institutes has provided a solid platform of capability that will ensure that our industry and graduates of the future will be prepared for a more formal standardised requirement for BIM from both public and private clients both at home and overseas

The Construction IT Alliance (CitA) has been promoting the benefits of digitisation in the construction and engineering industry in Ireland since its formation back in 2002. Whilst the Alliance has always strived to ensure that its members are exposed to a wide spectrum of contemporary digital tools and processes, the concept of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has dominated the focus of its activities over the past five years. BIM can be described as a digital tool that facilitates everybody to better understand a building or structure through the use of a digital model which draws on a range of data assembled within that model collaboratively, before during and after construction. In January 2016, CitA secured two years of funding from Enterprise Ireland to manage Ireland's BIM Innovation Capability Programme (BICP). This subsequently led to Enterprise Ireland requesting that CitA act as the secretariat to the National BIM Council (NBC) of Ireland. An explicit ingredient of the BICP involves conducting a comprehensive literature review of global BIM adoption initiatives, with a particular focus on successful enablers in international regions. This report seeks to carry out the first phase of this work by examining at a relatively high level, the adoption of BIM in particular international regions where BIM is currently a requirement or is likely to be a requirement in the near future. Whilst there are a suite of noteworthy publications referenced in this report, a more comprehensive review is not scheduled to be completed until September 2017. The ultimate aim of the study is to investigate the "state of the art" and to gauge the maturity of BIM adoption internationally. The world of BIM is a complex one and coupled with a requirement to carry out a comprehensive literature review it is a challenging prospect to capture accurately the status of BIM across the world at this time. What is evident within this report is the signifi cant adoption of BIM by Governments throughout the world Whilst globally respected publications like the McGraw Hill Construction SmartMarket Report in 2014 The Business Value of BIM for Construction in Global Markets (McGraw Hill, 2014a) and the NBS International BIM Report in 2016 (NBS, 2016) are specifi cally referred to, this report will mainly focus on evidence of regulated BIM, key champions and noteworthy publications within each of the chosen countries. The key output of this report is to learn from our international colleagues as Ireland progresses with the development of its national BIM programme in 2017.

The BICP is a direct response to the 2014 Construction 2020 report calling on Enterprise Ireland to work with industry organisations to promote the use of BIM and develop the appropriate technical skills amongst Irish construction firms so that they can successfully compete in markets where BIM is widely adopted or a requirement. There are four distinct work packages to achieve the strategic objectives of the BICP which include amongst other things a systematic review of BIM adoption in international regions, with particular focus on the enablers to support national implementation programmes. This study focused on exploring the value proposition behind these initiatives and what governments and professional bodies are doing to advance BIM within their countries. A number of countries within different continents with a strong focus on Europe were explored.

In 2011 the Royal Institute of Architects Ireland (RIAI) conducted a survey which found that BIM adoption within Ireland was quite low at 16%. Over the last five years these figures have risen significantly, with the 2016 Irish Digital Transition Survey reporting that 76% of respondents possess confidence in their organisation's BIM skills and knowledge. This represents a significant shift of BIM adoption in Ireland over the last five years. The BIM Innovation Capability Programme (BICP) Irish BIM study, builds on the findings from the BICP Global BIM Study by providing an in depth review of BIM in Ireland with regards to key government publications, BIM champions, existing standards and procurement routes, BIM training programmes, current initiatives and maturity within public and private sector projects.

Forfás Ireland policy advisory board for enterprise, trade, science, technology and innovation have recently recommended that the Irish Architecture Engineering Construction (AEC) industry should engage in more international work and in doing so have advised the industry to work within a Building Information Management (BIM) environment, so as to avoid the possibility of a competitive disadvantage in overseas markets. According to Forfás BIM can help develop the appropriate technical skills amongst Irish construction firms so that they can successfully compete in markets where BIM is widely adopted or a requirement. More importantly they have encouraged the industry to strive to achieve and exceed international industry standards. Such a standard is the Public Accessible Standard (PAS) 1192-2, which is now becoming the preferred choice of industry standard regarding BIM collaboration within the United Kingdom (UK). The purpose of this standard is to offer guidelines to the UK in order to ensure they achieve their 2016 mandate. This standard would seem to be a natural fit for the Irish AEC sector, due to the fact that the Irish Government have previously followed closely behind the UK regarding regulations, as well as been strongly linked through a high number of construction companies exporting their services to the UK. PAS 1192- 2 will potentially become even more relevant in the future as it influences the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in adopting accredited BIM standards. This may therefore not only limit Irish companies in trading to the important UK market but in also trading the rest of the world if they are not versed with its requirements. This paper will investigate the potential of adopting PAS 1192-2 within the Irish AEC sector as the preferred industry standard for BIM and how this could help construction companies win international work. The data collation methodology included a number of interviews and an in-depth questionnaire. The interviewees will consist of industry leaders from Ireland, the UK and Australia. This will be complimented by an international questionnaire that was distributed to assess what current standards are been used both within Ireland and abroad. The research findings have indicated that in order to ensure that the Irish AEC sector is ready to compete in overseas markets, that they should adopt PAS 1192-2 in accordance with any future BIM governed projects.

One of the biggest threats faced by governments in delivering greater efficiency on public works is the need for the public sector to have an enhanced physical environment to operate from. The physical environment can either enhance or impede worker productivity, therefore contributing to its bottom line profits and success of the organisation. This has now resulted in the AEC sector witnessing the development and adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM), so as to ensure a new level of functionality for the management of buildings. Despite enhanced Facilities Management (FM) being the goal of BIM, there is still reluctance and a lack of perceived benefits of having the Facility Manager involved earlier in the design phase. There remains a lack of clear evidence on what improved contribution the Facilities Manager can provide at the early design phase. This paper outlines how through early involvement of Facilities Managers, they can reduce waste and improve team productivity. The paper will detail a new process, in which the Facilities Manager will operate as a key professional and further suggests a unique set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of their contribution. The data collation methodology includes the use of data from a pilot project, which was primarily focused on shifting the project focus from design to FM, by earlier deployment of the Facilities Manager. It is hoped that the research findings will support the business case for the adoption of a more robust FM process for the public sector, facilitated by use of integrated BIM solution