Leinster House Bicycle Shed

i,d imagine to build anything in that location it has to pass through multiple committees and planning as regards design and use of materials .i,d like to see a full list of costs , i think the whole area around it has to designed eg materials used ,is it concrete, granite etc its funny theres no cover at the sides so it could still get wet in heavy rain.i think a one bed apartment costs around 200k to build minus vat and minus the cost of the land. It,s probably a one off design .

i think you could ask a company to build a standard bike shed for 20k max.

i think the opw must have a very complex system of working with contractors

to spend over 300k on a bike shed. This is going to show up in international newspapers and news websites like fark and drudge.com .

Favours and paybacks come into play.

Apologists starting to creep in.

We're not thick. We know of project scope creep and sunken cost considerations.

Words won't dilute the cost vs the itemisation that we are left with on what is now day 3 of the exposure.

Procurement got shafted here.

Not their money, so we paid.

I have worked for multinationals with big dollar names. Some potential suppliers would send in preposterous top level quotes for projects.

"They've got dollars and deep pocket" attitude.

Ask for itemisation and cost breakdowns and many would go silent.

Some just quoted using Anglo-Irish Bank "process" for estimating.

Although one brass-kneck presented an itemisation of a single line item for €5k.

This was for a floodlight above an outside plant room area, where there was already a lighting point.

I kid you not. He has never originally itemised but then had to reverse engineer and somehow get everything to add to €350k.

My estimate...€500 labour and materials for that line item.

There were other bizarre itemisations, but that specific line was enough to say good luck.

So, if I had not done my job, I could easily have accepted the quote from "sound man ex-footballer.

That particular facilities project, quotes ranged from €160k to €350k.

And yes the deliverables were similar as the RFQ (request for quotation) was clear.

Quite likely here that "sound man" got the bike shed job.

You never answered mine. I told you what my experience is and have answered your question. So we will have to agree to disagree and let others on here make up their own mind.

Your saying that a customer/client will/should pay full costs no matter how much more the final bill is as apposed to what was agreed at the start of a project without question or explanation. I have agreed that there are cases where this happens in the private sector but its rare and it happens way to much in the public sector. I have never had a case where someone just pays without any kind of review/audit/explanation of the cost differential. So let others make up their own mind.

Also the comment at the end I tell you I would hate to have someone like you looking after a project that I was funding as you would empty my bank account and tell me just keep paying and take it. Do you work in the public sector by any chance.

I'd say a Dee Forbes will be pulled and whoever is responsible will sail off into the sunset.

So he is saying now it would cost 100k?

He left that out of the tweet.

The reality is he hasn't a clue how much he would quote for it because like most people he doesn't know what level of work went into it.

That said they are not helping themselves here, the "breakdown" of costs they released was an absolute joke.

Oh yeah, I'll get right on it 🙄

I don't need to.

He is not getting that level of finish for 7k or 20k like he claimed in his tweet. Nor has he any idea what scope of works the contractor(s) were tasked with.

What part of that is confusing you?

You never answered the questions and are missing parts of information in the scenario. The client is informed at every point of rising costs and why by the consultant firm. You seem to be saying a company should do work for free and ignoring the requirements changed from the start and the initial quote. The consultant company provided everything they said they would.
I am asking you who is responsible and how to stop it happening again? Saying a project manager would solve the problem is nonsense as they couldn’t change anything all they would be doing is telling the client what has happened. Initial spec/details were incomplete from the client so the quote doesn’t include the additional work which then gets charged. Further considerations were also added which again is more work. Then an issue is discovered in the code requires even more work. You are saying all this extra work should be provided for free by the consultant. It doesn’t work like that with a plumber in your own home so why would it work like that with services for any company or state body?
A good project manager has to keep an eye on costs, time and scope. When a client starts to expand the scope beyond the agreement they are meant to stop it or make the client pay for additional work. Totally different to trying to charge more for agreed work which was never part of the scenario I gave. I wouldn’t want you as a client if you kept moving the goalposts of what work was agreed and expecting it for free.

I can't see how that is relevant, unless the price included extensive ground works and a specific Irish Granite Base and your Dads house is a protected building?

I never said anything like that read back what I posted. I simply said that in my experience people will simply not pay a higher cost of a project/build/service once its finished from what was quoted without some kind of explanation/audit or valid reason why the cost is different and that if the cost is too much and the the Project/build/service is completed without communication with the customer/client more times than not in my experience the customer/client wont pay for something that is costing 4 times more. As I say people on here will make up their own mind on how things are you have your experience and I have mine. I have been dealing with SMEs and trust me the room to pay 4 times for the price of a certain service/project is simply not there. Your either working with the MNCs or/and the Public sector.

All of this isn't even a storm in a teacup compared with all the other wastes of taxpayers money FFFG have squandered over the last number of years…

And the below isn't from RTE news or the Irish Times/Independent.. it's from Waterford Whispers!

If such a small sum of money, relatively speaking, wasted by the Irish State angers you so, then the following should completely and irrevocably boil your piss:

€19 million was allocated to Children’s Health Ireland to be used to address scoliosis surgery waiting lists. This money was misappropriated and spent on things other than ending children’s suffering and immense pain.

This week a whistleblower revealed €1.1bn has been lost in social welfare overpayments in a decade.

€158m has been spent on the Metrolink project since 2023 despite no actual construction taking place.

In 2022, the government failed to spend 25% (€1 billion) of its social housing budget in the middle of a housing crisis.

If Ireland remains on its current trajectory on climate targets it will face fines of at least €8.2bn after 2030.

In 2022, local councils only bothered to collect €138,335 of the €9.6 million they were owed by land hoarders in vacant site levies, and 13 of 31 local authorities didn’t even issue demands for vacant site levies to be paid.

BAM, builders of the National Children’s Hospital recently asked for an additional €107mn, bringing the total cost of construction to over €2.3 billion. Once you take a sedative to calm your fury Taoiseach, you might consider confronting whoever was Minister for Health at the time construction began.

The coalition government punished state broadcaster RTÉ for its mismanagement; concealed payments, €2.2 million on a musical, forcing PAYE employees to be freelance contractors, with €725 million funding.

In 2002, then Min for Education Michael Woods signed an agreement with 18 Irish religious orders involved in child sex-abuse scandals limiting their compensation liability to victims to only €128 million. This compensation scheme is estimated to have cost the Irish government €1.35 billion. Something to chew over Taoiseach as you consider news of an inquiry identifying 2,400 cases of sexual abuse in 308 schools run by religious orders.

So you can’t explain how your view should be applied to the scenario I provided and certainly can’t show how your “conversation” abilities would keep the job at initial quote. You are blindly angry about the shed and not understanding what I have said.

So you have no experience working with large organisations and the difficulties in pinpointing waste and costs. You are saying that because you don’t have such experience you don’t understand how costs can increase. An explanation has been provided but you want to say because it can’t happen in your sector it shouldn’t happen elsewhere.
You seem to think because I do have experience in large organisations my experience is less relevant than yours because you don’t have experience. Very weird logic. There are totally different considerations and costs with large organisations that cause issues.
Again you never solved the scenario I gave. Who is to blame and how do you stop. Not doing the work is not an option

Once Conor McGregor is elected it will be all sorted! :-D

https://m.sundayworld.com/showbiz/celebrity/conor-mcgregor-body-slams-government-wally-who-approved-336k-bike-shed/a1290523738.html

No better man to stamp something out!

Break a leg, Conzo.

How dare you assume my gender. I'm a non-binary entity.