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Schedule 2D Rates
A Contract within a Contract,– hidden in plain sight by John Farage O’Brien | 11 Nov 2025 Some years ago, I had a contractor client that fell into dispute on a PW-CF1 Public Works Contract over a significant change order in the region of €450k involving heavy excavators, rock-breakers and 40t dump-trucks. The contractor owned…
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Dissertation interview with John Farage O’Brien
Dissertation interview by Kate Hogan Final Year Quantity Surveying student in Bolton Street on Construction Adjudications in Ireland March 2024.
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The Use and Misuse of Dispute Avoidance in Ireland
A paper presented to the Dispute Resolution Board Federation webinar 4th March 2021By NG Bunni Dispute Adjudication Boards were developed by FIDIC following the successful American experience of Dispute Review Boards and first appeared in the 1995 Orange Book for Design- Build and Turnkey projects. The Board’s function of “Review” was changed to “Adjudication” in…
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Public Works Contracts Must Evolve
Irish Public Works Contracts Must Evolve Resolving a disputed public works final account, with the assistance of a neutral third party, is as much a part of the construction process today as the physical setting out of the works. However, this is simply not the way it ought to be — and it’s high time…
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Covid-19: Ex Gratia Payments and Public Works Contracts
You may recall my comments in May last year when the OGP first published guidance in relation to Employers making ex gratia payments to Contractors for costs associated with the stoppage of works and closure of sites. I both started and finished with the line: Private contractors on public works contracts do not get gifts or favours from the government.…
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Covid-19: Public Works Contracts and ‘Ex Gratia’ Payments
PRIVATE CONTRACTORS on public works contracts do not get gifts or favours from the government. For this reason, the publishing by the Office of Government Procurement (OGP) of a draft letter of agreement dealing with ‘ex gratia’ payments from Employers to Contractors can only be cautiously welcomed. For reasons that I am sure you are…
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Covid-19: Key Issues for Contractors under Public Works Contracts
NO ONE KNOWS WHAT the full impact of COVID-19 will be on the economy or wider society in Ireland. However, what we do know is that its impacts will be wide-ranging for every industry, including construction. As yet, there has been no direct instruction from government that construction sites be closed. The position, on the basis…
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Top Public Sector Award six years running
Greystones businessman John O’Brien’s company has won the highest award from Public Sector magazine for 2024, and for every year since 2017. O’Brien’s company, John Farage O’Brien Ltd, which operates from offices on Delgany’s Priory Road, has just been presented with the 2024 Legal Dispute Resolution Award by Public Sector magazine in its annual Excellence in Business…
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The view from the arbitrator’s chair
John O’Brien has a fundamental belief that in life people can generally be separated into two distinct groups, those with integrity and those without. He has found that this division has given rise to many of the disputes he has been involved in over the years
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Getting the adversary factor out of disputes
How to get the ‘adversary factor’ out of disputes and disagreements
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Why are construction disputes so complex?
Why are construction disputes often so terribly complicated? That’s the big question that comes up most among our clients, colleagues and advisors
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When those in dispute go to war
Many of the professional people I meet have no idea that some of the biggest commercial contract disputes in this jurisdiction are fought, settled or decided behind closed doors.
