Changing the Payment Culture in Ireland’s Construction Industry – Chartered Institute of Arbitrators Ireland (CIArb) Annual Conference, July 2025

One of the biggest and most difficult challenges I have taken on in my life began in 2010, when I set out to change the payment culture for subcontractors in Ireland’s construction industry.

In 2009, I watched in frustration as more than 500 subcontracting firms were forced out of business due to the non-payment of monies owed to them. That amounted to ten companies collapsing every week, with devastating consequences—over 200,000 people losing their jobs. But this was never just about lost contracts or unpaid invoices. It was about the destruction of livelihoods, the toll on families, and, tragically in some cases, the loss of lives. People were broken—not only financially, but mentally. Many would never recover.

That experience compelled me to act.

In 2010, I launched a campaign to create new legislation to protect everyone working in the construction sector. I wrote to the Taoiseach, to every Minister, every TD, and every County Councillor in the country, setting out the scale of the problem and proposing the type of legislation required to bring fairness, certainty, and accountability to construction payments.

With the invaluable support of Cathal Lee, the late Senator Feargal Quinn and his team, along with Engineers Ireland, the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI), RICS, and many others, Senator Quinn’s Private Members’ Bill was introduced in the Seanad in May 2010. It was enacted in 2013 and ultimately signed into law in 2016.

Last week, I was therefore delighted to speak at the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators Ireland (CIArb) Annual Conference, hosted by McCann FitzGerald LLP, and to see first-hand how disputes involving hundreds of millions of euro are now being resolved through the Act’s fast-track adjudication mechanism.

Nine years on—and with the benefit of experience—there are certainly improvements that could be made and amendments that could strengthen the legislation further. But overall, the Act has made real and meaningful progress in achieving what my objective was 15 years ago: to fundamentally change the payment culture of the construction sector in Ireland.

My congratulations to everyone who has played a role in making this happen.

And well done to the organisers of last week’s conference—Dermot Durack, Danyal Ibrahim—and to all of the speakers who contributed to an excellent and insightful programme:

Bernard Gogarty, Catherine Needham, Barrett Chapman, Mark Kehoe, Niamh O’Higgins, Maeve McDermott Casement, Siobhán Kenny, Mark Wearen, John Kelly, Paul Sheridan, Cathal Ryan, Martin Waldron and Jonathan FitzGerald.