Quantity surveying and cost management · Dublin and West Cork

We have sat on all three sides of the same contract.

We are an independent quantity surveying and cost management consultancy. We work client side, main contractor side and sub-contractor side, which means that when a variation lands on your desk, we have usually been the ones who had to write one.

Get in touch about a project See the three chairs
The Dublin docklands at dusk, with lit riverside office buildings along the quays.

The Dublin docklands at dusk. We worked sub-contractor side on the 155,000 sq ft office refurbishment at 25 North Wall Quay.

16+Years of experience
€250MProperty value assessed
150+Successful client projects
2018The year we started

The same job, from all three chairs

Every construction contract is a chain. Take a seat in it.

Money moves down the chain and valued work climbs back up it. Which seat you are in decides what the same number means to you. We have been engaged in all three.

Engaged by the employer

You committed to a number before anyone broke ground.

What you are protecting is the budget you signed off at the start and the final account you have to defend at the end. Everything in between is other people telling you what it now costs.

What we do in this seat

  • Cost advice and planning
  • Estimating and tendering
  • Procurement
  • Contract documentation
  • Contract administration
  • Monitoring and reporting

Sixteen projects on our list sit in this chair, including

  • Kilwogan Wood, CelbridgeMulti-phase residential development of 467 homes.
  • Sherkin Island Community Hall5,000 sq ft civic centre and creative hub, procured under a Public Works contract.
  • The Tannery, Sligo TownMixed private and social residential development of 74 homes.
  • Dorset Street, Dublin 1Retained façade refurbishment of two listed townhouses, converted to nine social housing apartments.

Four of those jobs are in this list twice. Kilwogan Wood, Heron Wood, Struan Hill and Gloucester Place appear in two chairs at once: the same scheme, the same practice, a different side of the contract.

  • ↓ Money moves down
  • ↑ Valued work and claims move up
The employer Developer, public body or owner PROSPEC SITS HERE The main contractor Holds the building contract PROSPEC SITS HERE The sub-contractor Holds a package within it PROSPEC SITS HERE PAYS VALUES PAYS CLAIMS

The contract chainFig. 01

Two red-brick Georgian townhouses on Dorset Street, Dublin, beside a cut-stone church, with cars parked along the kerb.

Where the margin is thinnest

The jobs with the least room in them are the ones worth measuring properly.

A retained façade on a protected structure has no spare money in it and no second chance at the sequence. Those are the jobs where a monthly report that tells you the number and the risk is worth more than a final account that explains both afterwards.

Dorset Street, Dublin 1 · two listed townhouses, nine social housing apartments

What we do

Seven services, from feasibility through to final account.

01

Cost advice and planning

Budgets, value engineering and design cost analysis, set against the rates the market is actually returning rather than the ones it returned last year.

02

Estimating and tendering

We read the drawings and the specification for the risk the design is still carrying, and price it before it arrives as a variation.

03

Procurement

Traditional and design and build routes, run through supply chain relationships we already have rather than ones we go looking for mid-job.

04

Contract documentation

Prepared alongside your solicitor, so the contract protects you in the places a construction contract usually does not.

05

Contract administration

Terms held to on both sides, assessments made on time, and disagreements dealt with while they are still small enough to be dealt with.

06

Project monitoring and reporting

You get the cost position and the live risks every month, in a report you can take to a board or a lender without translating it first.

07

Sub-contracting

Package tendering, valuations, variation management and final account settlement, from the side of the table where the measurement was never your document.

Recent work

Housing, student accommodation, offices, civic buildings and a dental surgery.

Twenty-four schemes across the three chairs. Each one is tagged with the seat we were engaged from.

  • A red-brick student accommodation block under construction, with scaffolding and blue site hoarding along the footpath.

    Client and main contractor side

    Gloucester Place

    112 bed student accommodation.

  • A bright student apartment living room and kitchen, with a yellow armchair, a blue sofa and a dining table.

    Sub-contractor side

    Prussia Street

    193 bed student accommodation.

  • A white curved reception desk under an arched alcove, with fluted panelling and a pendant light.

    Sub-contractor side

    Dental surgery

    Deep retrofit refurbishment of a high end dental surgery.

  • A rear yard with artificial grass and a picnic bench, behind a white-rendered apartment building.

    Client side

    Aughrim Street

    Overall development of four social housing apartments.

  • A residents' lounge with built-in bookshelves, pendant lights, sofas and a long shared table.

    Sub-contractor side

    One Lime Street, Dublin 2

    Development of 216 apartments and associated amenities.

  • A design visual of a four-storey apartment block with balconies and timber detailing, with a landscaped street in front of it.

    Client and main contractor side

    Kilwogan Wood, Celbridge

    Multi-phase residential development of 467 homes. Shown as a design visual.

A finished street of new two-storey houses in pale render with dark trim, with fresh paving and kerbs.

Two offices, one practice

Dublin 24 and Clonakilty, which is how a Sherkin Island job gets the same attention as a Celbridge one.

Social housing is a large part of what we do, and most of it is delivered for people who have to account for every line of it afterwards. We write the reports with that reader in mind.

Ballybetagh Road, Kilternan · 22 social houses across three blocks

Our people

Two directors, and both of them have worked the other side of the table.

Neil Buggy, in a navy jacket with his arms folded, photographed against a dark timber-slatted wall.

Neil Buggy

Director

More than 25 years of quantity surveying, in senior commercial roles across a PQS consultancy, PLCs, developers and main contractors, on landmark projects in London and Dublin. He founded Prospec in 2018, and takes a hands-on, practical approach backed by a sharp eye for detail.

Seamus O'Dwyer, in a navy suit with his arms folded, photographed against the same dark timber-slatted wall.

Seamus O'Dwyer

Director

More than 20 years in construction with developers and main contractors in the UK and Ireland before co-founding Prospec. Known for commercial acumen and rigorous technical analysis, he is a robust negotiator who prides himself on disciplined cost control and measurable value.

Get in touch

Tell us which chair you are sitting in.

Send us the drawings, the contract or just the problem. We will tell you what we think it is worth and what we would do about it, before anybody signs anything.

Email us Call +353 1 963 0624
Dublin
Suite 12, Workways Belgard, Block 5, High Street, Dublin 24, D24 YK8N
West Cork
3 An Corrán, Gallanes, Clonakilty, Co. Cork, P85 X088