Health & Safety

Dublin City Council / Irish Water

The Ballymore Eustace Plant is Ireland's largest water treatment plant.

The facility serves Dublin, Kildare, Dún-Laoghaire and South Dublin with more than 300 mega litres of water daily (Ml/d). The development has a 400 Ml capacity and is the culmination of a 30 year plan designed to provide Dublin with a state of the art, cost effective water supply. The plant is not only capable of meeting the current demands, it provides for the needs of the greater Dublin area for the medium term until a longer term new source is developed post 2020.

There has been a treatment plant at Ballymore Eustace since the 1940's, which was expanded six times until the 1980's, but the developments were not integrated and RPS was engaged to assist in long term masterplanning and delivery of a modern integrated facility. RPS has been providing planning, design, engineering and PSDP services on this project since 2002.

Our approach in relation to the planning, implementation and design had to be highly innovative due to the environmentally sensitive location of the plant and the need to maintain a safe uninterrupted water supply to the city. Our solution was to rebuild the plant on a phased basis – shutting down the old facilities in a staged process as the new elements came online. Design safety was paramount at all stages of the process to ensure the development was safe to construct (within the live plant), operate and maintain into the future.

The plant combines the robust engineering required of a national strategic asset with innovative value engineering approaches resulting in real whole life cost value for the current utility provider, Irish Water. Ballymore Eustace Water Treatment Plant was awarded the 2015 Excellence Award in Civil Engineering by the Association of Consulting Engineers of Ireland (ACEI).

Shell E&P Ireland Ltd. (SEPIL)

As PSDP, RPS was responsible for coordinating the design safety at each stage of the design process from 2007

Detailed design of the project started in October 2010. This required a large amount of input from RPS as PSDP to ensure that design decisions were made having regard to overall project objectives and client SEPIL’s ‘Goal Zero’ safety objective. RPS has provided PSDP input in the following areas of the design:

4.9km / 4.2m diameter segment lined tunnel from Aughoose to Glengad

Tunnelling compound and pipeline stringing area

On land sections of onshore pipeline (3.4km)

Development of revised design of landfall valve installation (LVI)

Site investigations on land and within the marine environment

Coordination of temporary works designers

Preliminary Health & Safety Plans for defined elements of the project

Compilation of Safety File

Ongoing support to SEPIL and relevant designers in complying with their requirements under relevant Health & Safety legislation

Construction began in July 2011 and was completed in December 2015. The Corrib Onshore Gas Pipeline won the Engineers Ireland Outstanding Project of the Year Award in 2016.

M11 EJV (Dragados Ireland Ltd & BAM Civil Ltd JV)

Provision of design and PSDP services for development of the M11 Motorway from Gorey to South of Enniscorthy.

The M11 Gorey to Enniscorthy PPP Scheme comprises a new four lane motorway from the end of the Gorey Bypass at Clogh to the townland of Scurlockbush, south of Enniscorthy. The scheme also includes a bypass of the N30 to the west of Enniscorthy and a link road to the N80. RPS is providing design and PSDP services on the project.

The realigned route will include the provision of approximately 27 km of dual motorway carriageway. Approximately 8 km of single carriageway will also be constructed to bypass Enniscorthy to the west and a further 4 km of dual carriageway link road will connect the existing N11 / N80 junction north of Enniscorthy to the M11 Mainline.

The project includes two grade separated junctions, three bridges (over rivers and railway line) and various road overbridge and underbridge structures.

The project involves construction in greenfield locations and in semi-urban areas, with adjacent housing, commercial and industrial premises and other infrastructure in some locations. The project crosses the Slaney River Valley, which is designated a candidate special area of conservation (cSAC) and proposed Natural Heritage Area (pNHA).