The State’s efforts to grapple with its growing infrastructure deficit are not unique, says Jerome Frost, chief executive of UK-based global engineering and design consultancy Arup. In fact, its €275 billion plan to overhaul transport, energy, water supplies and housing pitches it into a race against many other countries facing the same challenges.
“It feels like there’s a race because of course there’s a finite number of engineers in the world, there’s a finite capacity for the industry to deliver,” he says. “So, the countries that are able to progress quickest are the ones that are going to be able to continue to attract investment.”
Many will bet against us on recent form, but after reading the report of the Accelerating Infrastructure Task Force, Frost, whose firm has worked on major projects around Ireland and employs 1,000 people here, believes the State can get out of the traps quickly.
“The report stands out when it’s compared to what I have seen in other countries, I think because it is just so action-focused. There’s no one thing that holds up the delivery of infrastructure, it is a multitude of little component pieces that, when you put them together, create enormous delay, and actually the report really recognises that and unpicks them piece by piece,” he says.
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During a recent visit to Dublin, Frost met Jack Chambers, the Minister charged with delivering the National Development Plan. He feels the Government is determined to untangle the bureaucratic and logistical loops that constantly tie up critical infrastructure development. “It’s a fantastic moment and opportunity for Ireland,” he declares, “€275 billion of investment in the next 10 years in every bit of infrastructure that you can think of.”
To make this a reality, he argues that the Coalition needs to act on the report’s recommendations. This means addressing the planning system alongside prioritising the right projects. It then needs a comprehensive programme of work, so contractors know which projects are coming and when. Finally, it should simplify regulations to ensure that work can get through planning and approval processes quickly.
Frost explains that this gives contractors confidence, allowing them to invest in the capacity and skills needed for the work. Similarly, where the State wants to lure private capital, investors will have confidence that there is a long-term programme worth backing with their money.
We are already seeing signs of that, he maintains. Copenhagen Investment Partners’ recent deal to buy energy group Ørsted’s Cork-headquartered European onshore business for €1.44 billion was a vote of confidence in what is starting to happen here.
But executing the plan needs multiple sectors to co-ordinate, Frost counsels. There is no point spending billions of euro on offshore energy without a national grid that is ready to take the electricity. Nor can you build data centres if you only have the power in place but not the water.
While they do not dispute that infrastructure needs overhauling, Irish people are cynical about the State’s capacity to deliver against planning rows, delays, litigation and overspending.
`Bow wave effect’
All countries face this, Frost observes, but the Republic at least sat down and teased out all the problems. He believes that momentum will overcome much of that scepticism. “Start speeding up the planning process, reducing some of the regulation as has been proposed, and moving to get spades in the ground as soon as possible on some of those early projects,” he says.
That will create what he calls a “bow wave effect” that will pull the public behind it. Frost has some experience of this. He was head of design and regeneration on the London Olympics 2012 and was part of the team that led the British capital’s successful bid to host the games.
Back in 2004/05 he says similar disbelief greeted those efforts. His group used the games to accelerate infrastructure construction, focusing on the event’s legacy “right from the word go”, he recalls. “We pulled off a really significant, major project through the Olympics and instilled belief.”
Arup also worked in one capacity or another on all five lines of the Copenhagen metro, which took close to 10 years. “They set out to build all five right at the beginning, creating this forward pipeline,” he says. “So, people that wanted to be involved in that programme invested for the long term in building the skills base and the supply chains to make that happen.”
Arup was the architect and engineer on the design of the last couple of lines. The firm cut costs and sped up construction by designing stations that could be built in factories. To the same end it raised the tunnels’ depth, reducing the need for escalators, and allowing daylight down to platforms. “It’s a really good example of when you get it right, you get it really right,” Frost remarks.
His firm, along with many others, wants to work on the Dublin version, now called Metrolink. This will run from Charlemont on the city’s southside to Dublin Airport and northern suburbs. The idea has been around in various forms for decades. Last month, State agency Transport Infrastructure Ireland sought tenders for contracts worth almost €8 billion, a big step towards making it a reality.
Nevertheless, the scheme’s critics question its necessity and viability. Frost believes it is feasible and says that Copenhagen benefited from building its system. Not surprisingly, he makes a strong case for Arup’s own ability to ensure that Metrolink does work, drawing on its recent experience in Copenhagen.
“Speeding the process up, going for that modular approach to the station design, reducing the tunnel heights actually reduced the cost of those stations,” he says. “It’s those kind of innovations that actually makes those projects viable and leads you to their delivery.”
Arup has a phrase for it - “bankable engineering”.
“It’s no good just designing something because it looks good. It has to be viable, it has to be deliverable, and I guess that’s where our focus is,” he says.
The consultancy is interested in bidding on all aspects of the €275 billion programme. “We work across all of those infrastructure sectors; we would look across the infrastructure world,” says Frost.
Arup is involved in transport here, including advising on Dublin’s Bus Connects scheme.
Other focuses include energy, both on and offshore, water, and housing, all of which loom large in the national plan. The firm “always works with others” on big projects, bidding for jobs with other design partners or contractors.
And it will look for opportunities beyond the plan’s projects. New infrastructure creates scope for new homes, or industrial or commercial building. Copenhagen’s metro opened the door for new urban planning that took advantage of the improved public transport, such as high-density development close to stations.
Landmarks
The firm has a long history in Ireland. It employs 1,000 people here, 800 of them in the Republic, in offices throughout the country. Frost cheerfully admits to boring his family during visits here by pointing out landmark buildings on which Arup has worked.
They include Dublin Airport’s Terminal 2, the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge over the River Slaney in Co Wexford, numerous pharmaceutical plants in Co Cork, to mention a few. In fact, he observes that Arup’s work is visible all over the capital’s skyline, the most recent additions including Google’s offices at Boland’s Mills, a stone’s throw from its own office on Ringsend Road.
The firm’s founder, Ove Arup, opened the Dublin office simultaneously with the London practice when he began the business in 1946. One of its first projects was Busáras, on which it worked with local architect, Michael Scott. Frost was in the city to mark that project’s 80th anniversary.
Born in Newcastle in the north of England to Danish parents, Ove Nyquist Arup, studied architecture and engineering in Denmark. He worked on structures ranging from London Zoo’s penguin pool to the Sydney Opera House.
The partnership he founded in 1946 is now a multinational, almost 100 offices in 34 countries and 19,000 projects across 142 different countries. It employs 18,000 staff, all of whom have a stake in the business since its founder transferred ownership to its workers in the 1970s. After investment, they share in the firm’s profits, which will amount to around 7 per cent of the £2.3 billion sterling in revenue that Arup is on track to earn in its current financial year, which ends in April. Ireland accounts for 6 per cent of turnover.
Staff share in the profit irrespective of whether their element of the business is doing well or “struggling a little”, says Frost. That creates a uniting effect, he adds. “We’re all working for each other.”
Design, planning and project management are among its mainstays, but Arup has employees across 140 different disciplines. Currently, it is advising investors backing $200 billion worth of infrastructure projects. It also has 200 psychologists, who advise on the human impact of the firm’s work. For example, Frost explains, that could include tailoring the design of an airport terminal to take account of the way in which people will navigate their way through it.
There is a lot of cross-fertilisation, expertise built up in one industry or territory feeds through to the rest of the firm. So, staff in the Cork office who have worked on pharmaceutical plants now lend their skills to such projects in other countries, while the team responsible for the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge are working on similar structures elsewhere.
That works in reverse, too. The Irish operations are tapping skills from across the firm as they gear up for the National Development Plan. “What we are doing now is bringing more and more people into Ireland to work in the practice here so we can take advantage of global expertise and apply it here,” says Frost. “So, this is one of the most diverse offices we have across the Arup world, we have got people working here from China, from India, but the core is Irish.”
Frost has strong ties here. His mother hailed from Skibbereen, in west Cork, where her family owned a bakery. While she moved to London, her nine siblings remained, so he spends large amounts of time here. His sister lives in Castlehaven, also in Co Cork. When he was younger he travelled to Cork by bus, from central London to change at Busáras, giving this year’s anniversary a personal resonance.
He studied urban planning and began his career in local government in London, moving to Arup in 1997. That took him “all over the world”, including Africa, Europe and the UK. He left in 2003 to join English Partnerships, charged like the Land Development Agency here with housing and urban regeneration.
He joined the London Olympics in 2005, staying until 2012, after which he rejoined his old firm as head of its global planning practice, subsequently taking on other roles before becoming chief executive this year.
Frost is “immensely proud” of the London Olympics, rating it one of his most interesting experiences, but he admits it was very difficult, too, particularly juggling multiple stakeholders. “You had to keep pushing to keep going to create the bow wave that I described, very tough, great to look back on.”
It paid off in other ways too. He subsequently worked on the Tokyo Olympics and Arup recently secured commissions for the master planning and work on the stadium for Brisbane 2032.
His new job takes Frost around the world, giving him a ringside view of that global infrastructure race. Much of what he saw on recent visits to China and Japan with British prime minister, Kier Starmer, impressed him. Nevertheless, he believes the Republic can finally deliver on its infrastructure pledges. “I really think this is Ireland’s moment.”
CV
Name: Jerome Frost.
Job: Chief executive of Arup, the global engineering and design consultancy.
Why is he in the news? The firm is celebrating 80 years here and hopes to play a big part in key projects that form part of the Government’s €275 billion National Development Plan.
Family: Married with three children.
Hobbies: He enjoys cold water swimming, which he modestly points out was “just called swimming”.
Something we might expect: He is a qualified urban planner.
Something that might surprise: His mother was from Skibbereen, giving him strong ties to west Cork.
