The standard construction dispute follows a joyless arc: something goes wrong at month eight, both sides start building claim files, the project limps to practical completion, and then a final-account dispute consumes years and the margin on both sides. The alternative is to deal with it at month eight — while mutual dependence still gives everyone a reason to agree.
Dependence Is Leverage
Mid-project, the parties need each other in ways that evaporate at completion: the contractor needs to be paid and to finish; the employer needs the building, on a programme that is probably tied to funding, letting or occupation; the professional team needs the job to conclude without a claim attached to their name. That mutual need is exactly the pressure that produces agreement, and it is at its maximum before completion — after which the only remaining relationship is the dispute. A mid-project mediation can therefore do two things at once: resolve the immediate issue, and reset the arrangements that generated it — an agreed process for instructing and valuing variations, an agreed approach to the disputed elements, a revised programme with an agreed extension of time, an escrow or payment mechanism giving both sides comfort, and a short-form dispute route for the next disagreement.
Fitting It Around the Machinery
Construction is unusually well supplied with process, and mediation works alongside rather than instead of it. Statutory adjudication under the Construction Contracts Act 2013 does the cash-flow job: fast, interim-binding decisions on payment, designed to keep live projects moving. Conciliation in the standard forms produces a recommendation that hardens if not rejected in time. Mediation is the one that can settle the whole account — because the resolution of a real construction dispute is usually a package no tribunal has jurisdiction to award: some works done, some money contributed, some claims released, a warranty given, a programme revised. In practice the sequence is often adjudication for the cash, mediation for the account. Two disciplines govern the timing. Contractual deadlines are unforgiving: notice provisions and time bars get diarised before any process is designed, because mediating must never mean missing one. And insurers must be in the picture where professional indemnity or other cover is engaged — a mediation arranged without the insurer’s position produces an agreement nobody can fund. The full construction page covers defects, dilapidations of the technical kind, and who needs to be in the room.
The defects paradox: parties assume expert-heavy disputes are unsuitable for mediation. The opposite is true — they are the most expensive to litigate and the most improvable in a room, where a joint inspection and an agreed remedial scope can replace two years of duelling reports about work that may never be done as pleaded.
A live project with a dispute in it? 01 5827148 — bring the time bars that are running.
Richard O’Shea — Solicitor & Mediator
Solicitor at Mary Molloy Solicitors (established 1981), holder of the Law Society of Ireland Diploma in Mediation and a TEP of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. Mediations are conducted at The Ormond Building on Ormond Quay, at the firm’s Kilkenny office, at neutral venues, at the parties’ own premises — or fully online. Fees are agreed in writing with all parties before any mediation begins. 01 5827148 · richardoshea@marymolloysolicitors.com · LinkedIn
General information, not legal advice. The content of this website is general information about mediation and Irish law. It is not legal advice and does not create a solicitor—client relationship. Every dispute turns on its own facts, and advice on yours requires a consultation.
The mediator is not your legal adviser. Where Mary Molloy Solicitors is appointed as mediator, the mediator is neutral: the mediator acts for no party, advises no party, and does not decide the dispute. All parties are encouraged to take independent legal advice, and in particular to take advice before signing any mediation settlement. The firm does not act as mediator in any dispute in which it acts, or has acted, for a party — conflicts are checked before any appointment is accepted. Where the firm is instructed as solicitor for one party in a mediation, it acts for that party alone and does not act as mediator in that dispute.
Fees. Fees for mediation are agreed in writing with all parties before the mediation begins, and fees for legal services are agreed in writing with the client at the outset. In contentious business, a solicitor may not calculate fees or other charges as a percentage or proportion of any award or settlement.
Tax. Nothing on this website is tax advice. Where a dispute or its resolution has tax consequences — succession, business transfers, property, compensation payments — those questions belong with your accountant or tax adviser and with Revenue’s own guidance, and are best addressed before any settlement is signed.