Implementing Building Information Modeling in Public Works Projects in Ireland

The Irish State in recent years has suffered huge financial losses in the public works sector, which has now pushed the Irish Government to explore new ways of controlling cost. This background lead to the introduction of the Capital Works Management Framework in 2007 which aimed to support the certainty of outcome in terms of cost and quality, as well as improved risk management, through the implementation of fixed price contracts. In order to successfully compete within this framework it is recommended by the authors, that Irish Government moves towards the legal mandating of BIM. This can ensure a greater cost certainty for the Irish Government on recent investments that include a €1.5 billion programme to provide new schools across the country. In an attempt to promote BIM within Ireland a recent pilot workshop and a further ten BIM workshops where commissioned, in which served as the main primary research tool for this paper. Despite the success of these workshops, Ireland is still a long way from embracing BIM and would require the commissioning of a pilot project, from a sceptical Irish Government, to see its true value