Courts Service of Ireland

The challenge: making historic spaces work for the modern legal process

The project involved rebuilding five historic courthouses located across Ireland – from Cork city to Letterkenny.

As protected structures, the buildings needed extensive and careful conservation work, inside and out. A bespoke design was developed for each location by teams of specialist architects, to preserve their unique features as far as possible.

As well as the existing buildings, two new courthouses were commissioned in Drogheda and Letterkenny.

But the construction work was just the first step in a long-term commitment. BAM’s responsibilities also extend to operating and protecting these essential facilities into the future: including maintaining the high-quality standard over the 25-year lifespan of the FM contract.

Security, business continuity and compliance are all crucial in this contract, whether it’s to facilitate urgent out-of-hours court sittings, keep staff and other service users safe in a potential emergency, maintain comfortable environmental conditions, or deliver a fast response to issues large or small. 

The BAM solution: professionalism and responsiveness

BAM’s construction teams brought their extensive expertise in working with historic structures to the project, as well as broad experience in the justice sector across Europe. The teams preserved and enhanced the surviving fabric and features of each unique space.

The whole project was characterised by a multi-disciplinary, collaborative, creative approach and a methodology which delivers energy efficient, sustainable designs.

As part of this, BIM was widely used to develop design intent drawings so the protected structures could be conserved and enhanced. This also provided detailed and accurate data, which is continually used by the FM teams to manage and proactively maintain each building.

BAM delivers ten FM services across the seven sites: contract management, cleaning, caretaking and porterage, energy management, waste management, pest control, grounds maintenance, building and asset maintenance, security and a centralised helpdesk.

There’s a full-time facilities management team at each location to ensure high standards of service delivery and to communicate directly with all the different groups of users.

That’s supported by a centralised helpdesk available every day of the year, round the clock, so that all building users can report problems and request services.  

Behind the scenes, BAM manages over 20,000 individual assets in its CAFM system and closely monitors energy use to deliver continuous improvements.

The results: safe, reliable and cost-effective operation

In the years since handover, the new and improved courthouses have cut the cost of litigation, reduced waiting times and improved the efficiency of delivering judicial services across Ireland. BAM has successfully maintained these landmark buildings to a high standard, respecting their cultural and architectural heritage.

Complex mechanical and electrical systems have been installed and maintained to ensure optimum comfort for building users and to ensure efficient energy consumption. BAM constantly monitors and manages energy consumption, as well as implementing energy-saving strategies to ensure that the buildings are run efficiently. While planned and reactive maintenance schedules are designed to align with operational hours and court timetables, ensuring minimal disruption.

And thanks to BAM’s proactive approach to security – which anticipates and protects each building, its occupants and the continuity of operations – the courthouses are also well placed to deal with unexpected or evolving situations. For example, a back-up power supply is on standby in the event of a regional or national energy blackout, so the courts can keep operating safely and effectively.

The project was recognised with the Irish Construction Excellence Award for the Public or Heritage category in 2020, while the Cork courthouse won Public Building Project of the Year at the Irish Building and Design Awards in 2019.

At the 2021 Facilities Management Awards, BAM was recognised as FM Team of The Year – Service Provider, and in 2022, BAM and the Courts Service were together awarded the Client and Service Provider Partnership of the Year.