Since its 2021 founding, Kilsaran Precast has become a major supplier of structural precast concrete products in Ireland and the UK, experiencing rapid growth. ROBBIE COUSINS spoke with Managing Director Derek Duffy about the company’s journey, its commitment to innovation and sustainability, and its ambitious plans, particularly for the residential market.

Kilsaran Precast

Kilsaran Precast provides structural precast concrete products to a wide range of sectors, including residential, hospitality, life science, industrial and education, operating primarily in Ireland and the UK. The company’s product portfolio is extensive, comprising precast twin wall, solid wall, hollow-core flooring, columns, beams, stairs, and Omnia slabs.

Derek Duffy, Managing Director, Kilsaran Precast, opens by explaining, “Different combinations of those products go into making up a typical apartment building, student accommodation, hotels, schools, large science facilities, multistorey car parks, as well as structural cores for industrial plants, highlighting the versatility of its offering.

Kilsaran Precast’s strategic growth

Kilsaran Precast’s strategic growth is evident in its financial performance. “We have increased our sales turnover by 50% each year in the past four years since we were established in 2021,” Derek Duffy notes. “This includes the successful acquisition and integration of Oran Precast at the end of 2021, which helped to concentrate our offering across the residential and educational markets.”

Major capacity expansion

In a significant move to address the surging demand for residential units, Kilsaran Precast is significantly ramping up its production capacity. The company has expanded its production facilities to three locations: Existing plants in Oranmore, Galway, and Brownstown, Co. Kildare, are about to be complemented with a new facility in Arthurstown, close to Kill in Co Kildare.

“Arthurstown was acquired in December of last year,” says Duffy. “We’ve procured a brand new twin-wall system and Omnia floor carousel plant for this site as phase one of its development, and that will be ready to supply product from January 2026.”

This expansion is poised to have a transformative effect on the company’s output, especially in the housing sector.

“In 2025, we will have completed about 2,300 apartment units in the course of the year. When the Arthurstown plant is fully operational, it will allow us to deliver an additional 1,500 apartments on top of that, bringing our output to 3,800, just shy of 4,000 units per annum.”

Derek Duffy views the timing of this expansion as crucial, stating, “In light of where the government strategy is looking to go, particularly with the new supports for apartment buildings, the plant will be coming onstream just in time.”

The Kilsaran Precast residential solution

Kilsaran Precast has developed a unique and highly efficient system for apartment construction, focusing on speed, quality, and durability.

The core of its offering involves a dual-wall approach: “We use a solid precast wall with a fair face mould finish on the inside for the external wall of buildings. We then produce a twin wall internally, which has a fair face mould finish on both sides. This results in major time-savings on-site, as the walls can be painted directly, with no need for plasterboard,” he explains.

Further enhancing efficiency, the walls arrive on-site with all necessary conduits already cast in.

“Installed by our on-site team, we give the client a sealed, sound-proofed and fire-certified concrete unit ready for direct painting,” Duffy says.

This system also drastically reduces the risk of long-term damage to walls or the need for replacements, which can be an associated issue with multi-layer systems.

Driving sustainable construction

Sustainability is a cornerstone of Kilsaran’s operations, driven by its Head of Innovation & Sustainability, Ken Mulkerrins. Parent company Kilsaran’s ESG framework is structured around four pillars: Planet, People, Solutions, and Performance, with a strong focus on research and development to reduce the environmental impact of their products.

For the Kilsaran Precast side of the business, a key achievement has been the reduction of embodied carbon in its precast products.

“Historically, precast products were manufactured using CEM I cement. We developed our processes and switched to CEM II cement without affecting our products’ characteristics,” Derek Duffy shares.

“Furthermore, the successful integration of ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) as a supplementary cementitious material for several years has resulted in a “massive 28% reduction in our products’ embodied carbon.”

The innovation doesn’t stop there. Duffy confirms that the R&D team is actively researching advanced materials, including calcined clays and modified calcium carbonates, using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to find even better low-carbon solutions. The company is also working to complete Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for all of its products, an area of growing importance for clients.

In addition to product innovation, Kilsaran Precast is making strides in its operational sustainability.

“At our Brownstown facility in Kilcullen, we installed 2,000 solar PV panels in January of this year,” he explains. “This single initiative has delivered a 21% reduction in our grid electricity requirements, making a considerable dent in our Scope 2 emissions. The plan is to replicate this success at the new Arthurstown facility.”

Kilsaran is also exploring collaborative research, currently in the early stages of discussion with Construct Innovate and the Irish Green Building Council.

Digitalisation and the future of precast

Derek Duffy reflects on the massive technological shifts he has witnessed in his career, from manual drawing to advanced 3D modelling. He views the integration of building information modelling (BIM) as a key enabler for enhancing the company’s information handling capacity and directly feeding it into plant automation.

Looking ahead, he identifies artificial intelligence (AI) as the next frontier. “The same number of people will be able to have a much increased output in terms of their modelling and engineering capacity,” he predicts. “This faster pace of design will, in turn, drive the procurement of new manufacturing plants to handle the increased capacity. This will be the most exciting area of progress in the innovation space. So we are fully behind AI in terms of speeding up the design and production process.”

Outlook and closing thoughts

While acknowledging the current uncertainties in the international market, Derek Duffy remains cautiously optimistic about the domestic outlook. “Things will not be as bad as some more pessimistic predictions suggest,” he asserts, pointing to the continuing significant demand for FDI projects, which he attributes to the quality of the Irish workforce.

He concludes by emphasising the importance of infrastructure. “While Kilsaran Precast’s core business is not direct infrastructure works, the wider Kilsaran Group is heavily involved. “Investment in infrastructure is critical. If the government can address the planning problems at the back of that, then the residential targets that they’re looking to meet are well achievable.”

With significant capacity expansion, a focus on low-carbon innovation, and a robust digital strategy, Derek Duffy says Kilsaran Precast is now positioned to be a driving force in meeting Ireland’s housing and construction needs for the foreseeable future.

Landmark projects and service excellence

Kilsaran Precast offers a complete service model that encompasses design, manufacture, transport, and installation. This full-service approach was key to the successful completion of The Carriage Works apartments at the Castleforbes Residential Development in Dublin for John Paul Construction and Eagle Street Partners.

Derek Duffy explains, “We manufactured and installed 702 apartments in 52 working weeks, across six blocks ranging from nine storeys to 18 storeys. The logistics were complex, involving the installation of 15,343 precast elements on a tight city centre site, a significant achievement within a very short timeframe.”

The company’s integration of digital technology is crucial to this efficiency.

“We work with the architect and structural engineers, and produce 3D models. From these 3D models come IFC files, which programme the robots in our plant to fabricate the product to exact design specifications”

The entire logistics and installation process, culminating in a sealed, ready-to-paint unit, is handled by Kilsaran Precast’s on-site team.

Beyond residential projects, Kilsaran Precast is delivering across other sectors, including the recent completion of two surgical hubs for JJ Rhatigan at Cork University Hospital and Limerick as part of the HSE Surgical Hub Programme. In the educational sector, it completed Kilkenny CBS, a 1,100-student facility, also for JJ Rhatigan.

Its recent UK projects include providing a wall system solution for new airside facilities at Gatwick Airport.

A proud Guaranteed Irish member

Kilsaran is a family-owned Irish company that is fiercely proud of its roots and its status as a considerable employer.

“Our Co-CEO, David McKeown, works closely with Guaranteed Irish,” says Derek Duffy. “The Kilsaran group’s operations, which include Concrete Production, Sandpits, Quarries, Road Surfacing Asphalt, Paving, Grouts & Mortars and its most recent addition, Materials Recovery & Recycling, are spread across approximately 30 locations nationwide, representing 30 local communities. We employ over 1,100 people directly, and probably another 350 to 400 subcontractors. So we are a considerable employer.”