Family and community first with civil infrastructure solutions

Eire Constructions was founded by the Kelliher family patriarch, Tom Kelliher, in 1978 in Terrigal, New South Wales. From the beginning, Eire blazed a trail in innovative civil infrastructure solutions, specialising in water and sewer.

In 2000, Eire underwent its first transformative growth initiative, expanding into Port Macquarie and eventually Newcastle. Tom’s sons, Eamon and Tadhg, joined the group in 2005 and 2007. From there, the business has continued to expand.

Over time, Eire developed an enviable reputation for innovation and collaborative, customer-focused civil infrastructure solutions. Under the stewardship of Tadhg Kelliher, Eire established a board in 2019 and set about taking the business to another level.

“We’ve traditionally been a sewer and water infrastructure provider,” said Tadhg. “To this day, we are still very true to the product Dad started effectively doing in the ’70s.”

Family-focused

Being a family business is one reason Eire Constructions has thrived in a challenging industry. It’s not just about having a good product; it’s being supported by good people within the company. Eire has the capability of being a top-tier contractor but with the heart and agility of a family business.

“We have been very lucky to have a very supportive customer base,” Tadhg said. “We’ve always positioned ourselves as a specialist company. Water and sewer infrastructure is our bread and butter, and it’s where we want to work. That’s created a great runway for us, allowing us to be far more selective about the projects we take on.”

Embracing family values has encouraged Tadhg and the Eire team to always consider the human element of their operations.

“As a company, we always think about the human element when making decisions,” he said. “When facing tough choices, we consider if they would pass the pub test and how it would impact our people.”

Over the past 12 months, Eire has made significant changes to its business to ensure it provides its customers with the best products. In 2023, Eire experienced substantial growth and expansion, marked by recruiting numerous talented individuals to support their business’s development. Transitioning from a paper-based company to cloud-based systems for safety (SkyTrust), HRIS (ELMO), and payroll (SWAG) while implementing a new finance system (COINS) marked notable achievements during this period. Influential change management and consultation played a pivotal role in facilitating the implementation of these new systems and supporting Eire’s exponential growth trajectory.

“It’s why having that people-first approach is so important to us,” said Tadhg. “I believe that is what differentiates us from other Tier 1 and Tier 2 operators. We have always focused on our staff and managed to minimise turnover wherever possible. Eire does tend to hold onto its staff, and we are a better business for that.”

Development of the industry

Tadhg recalls that the industry has changed significantly since he started, from the humble shorts and T-shirts era. The most significant shifts have been around the emergence and importance of ESG principles and policies.

“We also have a more astute and savvier customer base these days,” he said. “Safety, quality, the environment, and customers are our priorities. That’s particularly the case when it comes to customer engagement.”

Another change is the increase in female participation. The business has seen this change over the years, and there is a strong focus on removing employment barriers within Eire.

“When I first started in 2007, I knew one female engineer,” Tadhg said. “We are working hard to try and increase female participation in the company”. Eire boasts a 28 per cent balance of females on their Senior Leadership team.

The big challenges

While many civil construction companies deal with a variety of issues and challenges, Tadhg specifically highlighted the skills shortages being faced across the industry and, in particular, regional markets.

“The availability of good personnel, particularly given the backdrop of continued labour shortages across multiple sectors, is always challenging,” he said. “However, I would say that we have been blessed in that area.”

Being positive environmental stewards is another challenge that Tadhg believes impacts Eire. He and his team work tirelessly to improve sustainability and circular economy outcomes.

“We have targets around sustainability initiatives,” said Tadhg. “Those will adapt and change in response to regulatory and compliance changes. The circular economy has been around for a while, so the only change is its increased emphasis on it.”

Recently, the company partnered with a specialist contractor, Central Waste Station, to take waste materials for recycling and repurposing. The contractor transformed over 87 per cent of the project waste into valuable and beneficial resources for the secondary market.

Eire is also looking to use sustainable materials and alternative material suppliers.

“For example, we have looked at projects where we can use lighter pipes,” Tadhg said. “Lighter pipes mean fewer truck rollouts or using lighter trucks. That results in less fuel consumed, which results in fewer carbon emissions in the environment overall”.

Client driven activities

Having close client-centric relationships has influenced Eire’s direction. This is a two-way conversation that highlights Eire’s successful history of broad civil construction experience. This is why their clients have trusted them to do specialised and complex projects.

“While we have that lengthy background, we try to get projects that challenge us intellectually,” Tadhg said. “We want projects that involve some complexity to ensure we use our grey matter. By taking that approach, we ensure our engineers and project managers are seeking solutions to problems.”

The IPWEA award ‘highly commended’ $7.9 million Gordan Street Upgrade for Port Macquarie Hasting Council exemplifies Eire’s expertise. This project was a masterclass in positive multi-stakeholder engagement. A major consideration for the project was the lengthy disruption to a major arterial road servicing over 30,000 vehicles a day, multiple businesses, residents, and the community in general.

Ensuring collaborative consultation with Transport for NSW, Port Macquarie Hastings Council, and the community was the foundation for project success. Challenging and complex projects, including bridges and water treatment infrastructure, often have complex staging or quality requirements. Another example is the current $37 million Grahamstown Water Treatment Upgrade for client Hunter Water.

“We use these projects to differentiate ourselves from the more generalised jobs,” Tadhg said. “Eire likes to show how we can stand out from our competition. The skills we have developed are extremely transferrable. It’s how we can continue to support our water division work because we have the expertise in general civil construction to enhance what we do in the water industry.”

Clients, particularly Hunter Water, have played a vital role in driving Eire’s water industry penetration. Hunter Water is investing considerable funds into rehabilitating its stormwater network across Newcastle. Eire has been tasked with the $10.5 million Macquarie Street portion of the ninety-six kilometres of the ageing infrastructure, which is due for completion in August 2024.

“Eire has been managing this for some time with Hunter Water,” Tadhg said. “They’ve seen us manage smaller projects, so Hunter Water wanted us to step up to take on multimillion-dollar projects. We’ve had considerable success and positive feedback for our project management approach.”

This work has allowed Eire to become involved in reservoirs, wastewater treatment plants, and other complex infrastructure.

“It’s been a natural progression for us,” said Tadhg. “We’ve grown larger and become more sophisticated because our clients have led us to additional opportunities that have allowed us to undertake these projects. We’ve developed excellent relationships with all our clients along the Mid-North Coast of New South Wales. This includes the Mid-Coast Council, Port Macquarie-Hastings Council, and Kempsey Shire Council.”

Developing full-service skills

Innovation lies at the heart of Eire’s reputation and success in water and wastewater. Its design, estimating, and project specialists are experts in water and sewer infrastructure work. Eire staff proudly sit on supply panels for many regional government and semi-government water and sewer utilities. The team actively engages clients regarding water and sewer projects during the design phase. Tadhg believes this is where Eire adds the most value by lending the team’s extensive knowledge and experience to the design and execution of client projects.

This is how the full-service approach to water and sewer infrastructure projects originated.

“We developed our full-service capability because we don’t want our customers to go anywhere else,” Tadhg said. “We want to ensure that we can cater to their whole network and their portfolio of assets. The goal is for Eire to receive the first call when a project comes up.”

It’s undoubtedly a client-led initiative where Eire’s clients come to them for solutions. “If it’s not in our wheelhouse, our clients know that if they have a challenging project, there’s a good chance we can help them with it.”

Community engagement

As a family-owned business, the entire team at Eire believes it is only fair and proper to play a positive role in the community. Part of this stems from their preference to hire locally for all projects.

Community engagement is vital to the success of all Eire projects, and they pride themselves on doing their best. A prime example is the recent completion of the $1.2 million Beach 2 Beach D3 section of 11km of uninterrupted footpath stretching from North Haven Break Wall to Pilot Beach in Dunbogan.

Beach 2 Beach Committee Leader Penny Small said, “Eire’s project team were great to work with. The team was approachable, and their communication was exceptional. The quality of work was on steroids, and this is an amazing outcome for our community.” and Port Macquarie Hastings Council Project Manager agreed saying the team from Eire completed the work seamlessly and with a high-quality finish.

“We encourage our employees to be part of the community,” Tadhg said. “We would be paying lip service to that if we weren’t involved in the community and trying to support community initiatives. It’s the right thing to do for any business.”

Eire’s philanthropic endeavours drive community benefit, economic activity, and tourism. Eire is the naming rights sponsor of the Port Macquarie Runfest and 9 pm New Year’s Eve Fireworks. Eire employees volunteer, attend and participate in both events, and they are excitedly marked on the calendar by locals each year. The funds from these sponsorships go directly towards running and marketing the event to locals and the visitor economy. Feedback from the community is that events like these give them something to do with their families, attract tourism to the area and boost economic activity for local businesses.

Eire also has The Hive Community Grants program, designed to help community organisations in the Mid-North Coast, Hunter, and New England regions.

The grants are one-off financial contributions. Any organisation can apply for up to $10,000 in funding to boost its community-based events and projects. The purpose of the grants is to strengthen local economies and social and environmental hubs.

“We allocate funds every year and encourage organisations to apply for those funds for any community initiative they might have,” said Tadhg. “I’m a passionate runner, so I like to support the running community wherever possible. Past beneficiaries have used funds to fit out a new Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths (STEM) classroom for a local school.”

The grants have also been used to fund the construction of libraries in small towns, community rooms, and other projects.

Eire has led the way in all areas of water treatment, water network infrastructure and transport infrastructure for more than 45 years. Their people make the difference. The entire team is committed to working collaboratively with clients and the communities they work in to achieve the best outcomes.

For more information, visit https://www.eirecon.com.au/