AN OPW project to replace an unsafe seventy-metre perimeter wall around a government office ended up costing over €490,000.
The works at the Dublin HQ of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) were originally expected to cost around €200,000 exclusive of VAT.
However, a live ESB cable and a leaking pipe were discovered during preliminary works leading to extensive delays and unforeseen costs.
It resulted in a doubling of the bill with around €240,000 spent on demolition of the wall and rebuilding, in line with the original OPW estimates.
The extra works to deal with the high voltage live electricity cable that was uncovered during the work ended up adding more than €250,000 to the bill.
The OPW acknowledged there were “very significant delays as well as increased costs” on the job at Lansdowne House in Ballsbridge.
This included payments of €54,000 to the ESB to redirect the wire and €61,500 to Dublin City Council so footpaths and public parking could be closed off.
A further €82,200 was spent on ancillary costs, according to a detailed breakdown of spending provided by the OPW.
The saga began in March 2021 when the OPW was conducting an inspection of the building where they found the perimeter wall was “deemed unsafe for health and safety reasons” and had been built without a proper foundation.
A decision was made to rebuild it using salvaged bricks with the building firm Sensori approved as contractors and a preliminary estimate of €213,366 inclusive of VAT for the work.
However, the project ran into difficulties in October 2022 when the leaking water main and an electrical cable were discovered.
In early 2024 however, the contractor discovered there was still a section of live electrical cable near where works were taking place.
Then in August 2024, it emerged that the reconfiguration and building of the wall had left a shortfall of around 750 blocks of a special type that were needed.
The delays on the project caused frustration for the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), which lost a large number of parking spaces.
In an information note, the OPW said the two-metre-high boundary wall was around seventy metres in length and was built in the 1960s.
They said because the site was an architectural conservation area, a decision had been made to retain the existing blocks to “rebuild the wall in accordance with the original design”.
On the rebuilding project, they said: “The total costs involved in the wall removal and reconstruction was €201,500 ex VAT in line with the original estimate.”
For the unforeseen electrical cable, they said works on that were now complete.
An information note said: “The total additional cost due the discovery of the live wire cable was €211,300 ex VAT.
“The fact that the live wire was found, which posed a serious health and safety risk introduced an unforeseen complexity into the project, increasing the time and costs involved.”
