A Co Cavan man believes local construction companies can play a pivotal role in driving innovation in the sector.
The O'Reilly group has evolved from a family business since 1939 to a leading precast concrete manufacturer.
The group designs, manufactures and installs structural and architectural precast frames for residential, commercial and industrial projects.
The local firm will host an event day with Skillnet MMC Accelerate tomorrow at its facility in Kingscourt from 10am until 1pm.
Skillnet MMC Accelerate is a nationally funded upskilling initiative, which focuses on the skills and the talent needed to support the increased adoption of modern methods of construction.
Business development director of O'Reilly precast, Darragh O'Reilly says it's about helping the industry, particularly SMES to move from traditional building to a more modernised, sustainable and productive system.
He also believes that modern methods of construction offers significant potential to improve housing delivery in Ireland.
Speaking to Northern Sound, Mr O'Reilly says this is something that smaller firms can adopt, not just larger companies.
He believes that local companies are "key" to the whole development of Ireland's needs: "I think local companies are key to the whole development of Ireland's needs. We have proactively engaged with local schools to actually take on people from as soon as they finish they education in secondary and schools and we support them during their college training.
We actively encourage engineers, architects, designers, IT graduates all to enter into the business at a local level. There used to be a concept that people has to travel to Dublin or abroad to gain employment but that's not the case anymore.
Indutries like ourselves are actively looking for the skillset of the people who are coming out of our schools and colleges. We see it as an opportunity for ourselves to offer employment while also benefiting from the skill set that is right on our front door step."
