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Good morning, Mary, thank you for taking the time to tell us about your experience as a Quantity Surveyor (to use the UK/Irish title of the role). I know you are from Ireland but is that where you grew up and where you were educated?

Yes, I was born in Co. Sligo, often referred to as Yeats’s County named after the poet W. Butler Yates and his equally famous painter brother Jack Yeats. I had a traditional academic schooling at the Convent of Mercy, educated by nuns and taking subjects such as French and Latin! …..at that time nothing that would prepare me for a career in construction which is what I always wanted to do.

CEEC: Delegate since 2019

Name

Mary Flynn

Born

County Sligo, Northwest Ireland

Education

Atlantic Technological University Sligo, Technological University of Shannon, University of Salford and my Masters in BIM in Technological University Dublin.

Company

Dublin City Council Quantity Surveying Division

Current position

Assistant Chief Quantity Surveyor

Country

Ireland The Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) (https://scsi.ie/)

What first attracted you to construction and quantity surveying?

My maternal grandfather was a builder and cabinetmaker, which was before my time, but I would have loved to have known him as he was a keen wood turner and I am sure I got that love for woodturning from him too. My father was a farmer and I was driving tractors at the age of twelve and quite at home on the farm but I always knew I would end up in construction one way or another. I remember when I was quite young my Dad commissioned drawings for a fine new cowshed. They were blueprints, but the level of detail was amazing when I think about it now. My mothers’ elder brother was a builder and when I was a child, I could not wait to get my hands on his drawings when he had finished working on them, as they were mostly churches and the like. This uncle gave me my first book on the subject, entitled, “Quantity Surveying Explained” by Ivor H Seeley, so you could say that building was set in my DNA! Fuelled with an interest in construction, I took a two-year course in Construction Studies where I had won a scholarship in what is now Atlantic Technological University Sligo and the rest is history. I never looked back.

Where did this take you in your career, Mary?

Well, I then moved to Manchester in the UK with my husband who is also a Chartered QS and spent the next eleven years working for a QS practice called Cameron Middleton & Lees in their Manchester, Oldham and Liverpool branches, I fitted in very well being Irish, I very much enjoyed my time in the UK. Our two children all seem to have taken up built environment-type careers and so there is nothing like keeping the whole thing in the family!

Was there a stand-out project you worked on?

Certainly, one of the biggest projects that I enjoyed working on early in my career in the UK was a £40 million printing press building in Oldham for Mirror Group Newspapers with Robert Maxwell as the Client. I was site based, it was a 24/7 project with three shifts and a very high level of security, clean rooms etc. It was fast paced and novel for the time.

Here are a couple of photos from earlier days – on site with a hard hat on (of course!) and separately a photo from almost 30 years ago, where I was raising funds so as to encourage more women to be involved in property and construction.

How would you describe a typical day at work Mary?

I moved back to Ireland and initially worked for a Consultant Quantity Surveyor, with A V Cooney & Co. Most of my work was for developers on various commercial and residential schemes. I also spent three years part-time lecturing in what is now TUDublin in tendering & estimating and civil engineering measurement. I’m now an Assistant Chief QS with Dublin City Council and have responsibility for the QS maintenance portfolio of existing housing stock of some 28,000 units along with other portfolios and feel greatly blessed with having a wonderful team to work with.

What made you decide to take up the invitation to join CEEC?

I was asked by Gerry O’Sullivan in 2019 to consider joining CEEC (https://ceecorg.eu) as one of the Irish delegates of SCSI (https://scsi.ie/) , which I was pleased to do. It is really encouraging to see the opportunities for the exchange of information and knowledge across the European countries represented in CEEC. The collaboration between us is excellent and there is almost a ‘family’ atmosphere when we meet together, which has been very rewarding. Recently, I was pleased to be elected as the General Secretary of CEEC and am happy to support the membership in every way I can, whilst trying to follow in the footsteps of the inimitable Creon Swaghoven!

Finally, Mary what would you say are the biggest challenges to our profession today?

Well, we have a massive infrastructure project backlog and a serious skill shortage and we need to try to address the problem – we have been seeing the need to recruit QSs from as far afield as Poland and Brazil. Fortunately, Ireland is not currently suffering from recession now and so we have full employment but we still have a severe shortage of QS’s and other professionals. SCSI has published a number of reports on the subject but this is not merely an Irish problem – I see it as being much bigger than that… a European problem. Another challenge and one I am particularly concerned about is the lack of women in the profession. I have spent my whole career encouraging women to take up surveying and supporting and mentoring the SCSI mentoring programme for young female surveyors coming up through the ranks and others who are in the profession. I currently mentor three young surveyors and I have been for a number of years now a Director of CITA Construction IT Alliance and always seek to promote gender equality.

Finally, I have the privilege of being an Irish Construction Excellence (ICE) Awards judge which is probably the equivalent of the Oscars for the construction industry and is therefore the highest profile event in the Irish construction calendar. Winner of the 2024 SCSI Surveying Excellence Award as the Elevate Winner championing Women in Construction at the SCSI National Conference in Croagh Park Dublin.

Mary, thank you so much for your time and I look forward to welcoming you to the next CEEC (https://ceecorg.eu) conference to be held in Madrid in Mai 2025.

What follows are a couple of published pieces relating to Mary’s call for a greater take-up of the profession by women in the Irish Building Magazine.

Issue 2 2021 (https://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pnum=126&edid=6790feb8-b1ef-4b22-8004-7158d429fdaf&isshared=true)

Issue 4 2021 (https://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pnum=57&edid=1160c71d-12d4-40bb-abee-cd8080965e6e&isshared=true)

Issue 1 2022 (https://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pnum=24&edid=8971d500-731f-4459-b9b3-485363d6c6b9&isshared=true)

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This interview first appeared in CEEC Inside, February 2025. Read the original edition →