Number one Priority
December 30, 2010Recent years have seen two significant construction projects in County Cavan led by Priority Construction, the firm owned by McCarthy brothers John and Michael which will be celebrating its 70th anniversary in 2012.
Priority encapsulates a number of diverse companies, including Priority Drilling, the forerunner of the conglomerate founded in 1942 and a leading player in the field of investigative drilling, currently involved in projects for clients such as Tara Mines and Lisheen Mines; Priority Geotechnical, which specialises in geotechnical and geo-environmental investigation and consultation; Priority Groundsource, its renewable energy arm; and Priority VTN, the company's vehicle testing centre based between Loughrea and Ballinasloe in Co Galway.
As Contracts Manager of Priority Construction, Co Donegal man Garvan Ward has found work taking him all over the country and, increasingly given the downturn at home, in the UK, with Priority currently leading landfill cell construction ventures in Scotland and Wales as well as tendering for other contracts in Northern Ireland and England.
With development slowing down in the Republic of Ireland, Garvan believes the UK market will form a solid proportion of Priority Construction's workload for at least the next two years. "Previously none of our work was abroad but we've won some good contracts over the last 12 months, so I could see work outside the 26 counties increasing to approximately 40 per cent of our total output," he says. "We've been lucky enough to be able to sustain our core staff of site staff, engineers, foremen, site agents and contracts managers. They've been in place for the last ten years and more, we've managed to keep them through the challenging times of the last couple of years and we want to hold onto them going forward as well."
Scarcely a day goes by without dispiriting news for the Irish economy, from spiralling unemployment and Government spending cuts to bond market interest rates, but Garvan prefers to look at the positives.
"Priority Construction has been involved in a road realignment and new road construction project in Trim in Co Meath, we've a number of landfill constructions for North and South Tipperary and Kilkenny County Councils and we're also completing enabling works for a new business park for the IDA in Greystones in Co Wicklow, so considering the industry we're in, we're lucky enough with the jobs we've been working for the last year or so," he says.
"Next year promises to be a difficult year, but we'll keep the head down and work through it as best we can. Since the downturn the jobs are getting smaller and there's less money to do them, but we're working on new design concepts and ways of being more efficient, to be cost-saving both to ourselves and to the client as well. Anyway, there's enough of us talking about doom and gloom, so we'll keep the best face out."
With regard to Cavan specifically, Priority Construction's exceptional level of workmanship has been witnessed in two major projects in recent years, the 5km Cavan bypass and the reconstruction of Belcoo Bridge.
"Construction on the Cavan bypass started in 2004 and was completed in April 2006," says Garvan. "It would have been the biggest civil engineering project in Cavan at the time, with two-and-a-half kilometres of new road construction and another two-and-a-half kilometres of upgrading of existing carriageway. There was also the construction of the Moyne Hall Bridge in the middle and the task of putting in place a large retaining wall at a very steep embankment at one point on the road, which was completely designed and built by ourselves.
"Work on the Belcoo Bridge, meanwhile, was completed last year. The County Council had to put in a temporary bridge because the original bridge was deemed unsafe, so we led a complete demolition and reconstruction project. It was a painstaking job - we had to demolish the bridge, mark every stone and set it aside, and then rebuild the bridge with the exact same stones in the exact same place. It was very specialist work but it turned out very well in the end."
As a native of Dunkineely in Co Donegal, a small enclave close to the Atlantic coast which was put on the map when one of its sons, Martin Shovlin, starred in Donegal's All-Ireland winning campaign of 1992, Garvan Ward is a staunch follower of Gaelic football.
From the time he spent in Cavan in recent years, he acknowledges that a keen interest in GAA is something he shares with all Cavan folk. With Tyrone still a force, Armagh building nicely and Down returning to prominence in 2010, the Ulster championship is sure to be a difficult assignment for both Cavan and Donegal in 2011 and beyond.
When it comes to the GAA, though, a New Year always brings new hope and Garvan believes that in Jim McGuinness, the former county player who has forged a reputation as a formidable coach in recent years, Donegal have the right man in the job.
"Things haven't gone well for us over the last few years and Cavan have probably had the same problems," he says. "Gaelic football at inter-county level now has got so professional now that it's very hard for some of the older guys to have a big impact. But I have high hopes for Jim McGuinness. He's the new manager of Donegal now and he's brought a very professional approach to the whole thing. He was over the U21s who got to the All-Ireland final at the start of the year, when they played Dublin in Breffni Park, and he's done some exceptional stuff as a coach over the last ten years. He's been great with his club Naomh Conaill [who got the better of Cavan champions Kingscourt Stars in the Ulster club championship in 2010] over the last few years - they're probably the only team in the county that goes into every game with a real game-plan.
"It's like the Tyrone approach, the U12s play the exact same way as their senior team, so hopefully Jim will help to improve our fortunes in the coming years. I know we both have to improve, but you never know, we could see a Donegal-Cavan in an Ulster final in the not-too-distant future."
For more on Priority Construction and the rest of the firms under the Priority umbrella, check out http://www.priorityconstruction.ie/.
