Our Directors Aidan McCarthy and Paul McGreevy interview with Business Eye’s Richard Buckley.
Belfast-based firm, AM Consulting Engineers (AMCE), provides engineering and design consultancy services, working for a wide range of contractors and consulting organisations throughout the island of Ireland and beyond.
Founded by Aidan McCarthy, a Chartered Civil Engineer of 20+ years’ experience in Ireland, the UK, and the Middle East, AMCE has an experienced team of engineers working on water and infrastructure projects all over the British Isles. Business Eye’s Richard Buckley talks to AMCE Managing Director Aidan McCarthy and Director Paul McGreevy.
Fast growth has been a hallmark for AMCE. The firm started trading in mid-2021 and has since grown to a team of 13 people with ambitious plans to grow to 50 people in the next 3-5 years. “We started out doing purely civil engineering, but we’ve since added structural and geotechnical engineering. That allows us to provide any design service in the wider civil engineering sector” says Aidan McCarthy. “Consultants like us design things, contractors build things. That’s how to explain this industry simply.”
The firm’s main office is in Belfast, and it opened an office in Limerick last year to service contracts south of the border. It’s also sizing up a move into the Middle East marketplace in the not too distant future.
“We’re fortunate. We’ve got some very good technical people. Paul and I are very hands-on with design, having worked on high profile and technically challenging jobs, so it’s important to have a strong team around us. We’re a very technical organisation, which allows us to speak frankly and openly to our clients about what can and can’t be done, and that’s important.”
A Chartered Structural Engineer with 20+years’ experience, Paul McGreevy covers a broad range of projects, from buildings and bridges to tunnels and water treatment works. “I’m fortunate in that I can look across the different sectors. That’s good because it helps broaden our service offering and helps to improve technical excellence right across our team.”
Aidan McCarthy picks up on the importance of engineering as a whole. “Look at the amount of cranes on the horizon. Civil and structural engineers are involved in all of that. And as an industry, we don’t shout enough about it. A lot of people don’t know what we do. And that’s probably because we’re not good enough at explaining it.”
“We probably need to be a bit more vocal as an industry and it’s topical at the minute with the Northern Ireland Water funding issue, and the Programme for Government commitment to investment.”
Like many in his wider industry, and right across the business spectrum, he sounds a warning about the Northern Ireland Water funding crisis, where development could be paralysed by a lack of access to sewerage and wastewater infrastructure.
“Every building you see needs water going in and sewage coming out. And everything’s at full capacity. Generally, people don’t appreciate the water industry because it’s not in the public eye. What they tend to see is a local road being blocked because somebody’s digging a hole, but they don’t realise that all of this essential infrastructure work supports investment and drives economic growth.”
Paul McGreevy agrees. “Utilities and associated industries don’t get much praise, but they get plenty of criticism when things go wrong. But, due to a lack of investment over many years, the ageing water network is at capacity, and we find ourselves in a really challenging situation.
“Another big challenge facing the industry is finding and recruiting enough qualified engineers to solve the problems going forward.”
“It’s a difficult subject to study at university,” adds Aidan. “It’s heavily underpinned by maths, physics, geography, and chemistry. And they’re hard subjects to study. I think that has led to fewer people studying it. But it’s vital that we keep attracting young people into engineering. Every building you’re sitting in, every road you drive on, every time you flush the toilet or take a glass of water, there has been a civil or structural engineer involved in it.
“Think about the Lough Neagh problem too [toxic blooms of blue-green algae]. A combination of environmental and civil engineers will probably end up sorting that one out in the long term. It’s not a failure of civil engineering, it’s a failure of investment,” says Paul McGreevy. “There needs to be a political will to grasp the issue and deal with it.”
Environmental impacts and sustainability are key for all engineers, including the team at AMCE.
“That’s a big focus for all consultants and contractors. And it’s not just lip service. There is real benefit in trying to achieve a sustainable solution in every case.”
Sustainability and the drive towards net zero, he says, increasingly impact the procurement process, particularly at public sector level. “I think it’s embedded now in what we do. You don’t even think of it as sustainability. It becomes part of the design process.”
The industry, says Paul McGreevy, has embraced the use of BIM – Business Information Modelling. “It helps us to more accurately model structures. Everything can be properly measured and scheduled from a good BIM model.”
AMCE has a strong focus on the water industry both north and south, but continues to work right across a range of sectors. “We could be designing a tank in Cork on a Monday and designing a hotel in Belfast on a Tuesday. That’s the nature of the business.”
One of the firm’s key projects at the moment feeds into the construction of the high-profile Narrow Water Bridge, connecting the A2 near Warrenpoint, County Down to the R173 near Omeath, County Louth. Paul McGreevy takes up the story.
“We’re providing Temporary Works for the installation of 98m high fixed pylon and a 138m fixed deck along with associated works. The structure is being transported by barge from Warrenpoint Harbour and being rolled into place using our temporary steel pile and frame structure. Once the deck is in place, the contractors can get the concrete poured and all the cable stays erected over the next 16-months before the jacks are removed and our temporary structure is decommissioned. So it’s an interesting project and it’s a little bit outside the box.”
“Reputation is crucial in a sector like ours,” says Aidan McCarthy. “But people do business with people. Relationships matter and that’s what has driven our business growth.
“At the core, we’re problem solvers. We find solutions day in, day out, for a bridge, a hospital, a school, a hotel, or some other project.”
Aidan outlined the recently completed Terryland Water Treatment Plant (WTP) Intake Works, designed in collaboration with Coffey Construction. It will contribute to the long-term sustainability and growth of Galway’s water supply network. It is a perfect example of a technically challenging project that benefited from working across a multi-disciplinary team. It was shortlisted for BIM excellence at the Irish Construction Excellence (ICE) Awards and nominated under the €5-10m category at the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) Awards.
Aidan concludes by adding that “All of our work is driven by technical ability and excellence. Paul and I have both been very lucky in our careers. We’ve been able to work on lots of different things and we’re comfortable with how to design. Where some might see risk, we see opportunity and we can help you with the solution.”