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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
34 February 2015
POLITICS
Also in this section:
Housing crisis 38
Ansbacher 39
Travellers’ rights 40
Gay marriage 41
I
NTREPID followers of archi-
tectural tumult will recall how
a letter arrived in the in-boxes
of polo-necked members of the
Royal Institute of the Architects
of Ireland (RIAI) on 11 November, from
the President Robin Mandal. “Let me
state there is no basis to any allegations
of corruption or fraud in the organisa-
tion,” it expostulated.
Eoin O’Cofaigh, a former President,
had complained about the payment of
€500, 000 without any tender process to
Bluebloc Digital, a company 50% owned
by Odran Graby, the son of the veteran
RIAI Chief Executive, John Graby, for
IT services. Robin Mandal suggested in
correspondence and indeed in an article
in the Sunday Times that Eoin O’Cofaigh
himself employed Bluebloc Digital when
Confidential meetings of senior RIAI members
agreed to seek resignation of CEO, John Graby,
but did not follow through. By Michael Smith
RIAIsing the stakes
National Conference
Centre by RIAI Triennial
Medal-winner,
Kevin Roche
February 2015 35
prominent member of an RIAI ‘reform
group’ campaigning against an amend-
ment to Building Regulations, which
make it mandatory for architects,
and other professionals, to certify
that new buildings comply with those
Regulations. Many architects feel the
Regulations prejudice the members of
their profession by requiring stringent
guarantees with little financial gain;
and, less convincingly, that they preju-
dice the client and the public interest.
Mandal and Graby are better disposed
to the Regulations, on the basis they pro-
vide work for architects. Some of the
dissentients wonder if there is any com-
promise entailed in the RIAI supporting
the Department of the Environment’s
bullish stance on the Regulations and
governmental funding to the RIAI of
around €1m for architectural training.
Brothers Aidan and Ciaran O’Connor,
both RIAI members, are respectively
the Environment Department official
responsible for drafting the Regulations
and the OPW-employed ‘State Architect’
with a key role in deciding who is con-
tracted to carry out architectural
training.
A recent article in Village speculated
that the reason behind the hoo-ha was in
fact existential angst in the beleaguered
architectural profession and frustration
with the genteel stance of the RIAI on the
building-regulation burdens. However,
more information has come our way via
the details of now-compromised confi-
dential talks.
The fifteen surviving ex-Presidents
of the RIAI have met three times in the
last two years and on two of those occa-
sions resolved by firm majorities to seek
the resignation of the CEO. Graby seems
to have irritated most of the Presidents
whose grand-standings it has been his
solemn duty down the years to facili-
tate during their short and honorary
ascendancies.
An anodyne note [above] of the pro-
ceedings of one of the meetings of the
ex-Presidents was prepared by Tony
Reddy, architect, in whose office the
meeting had convened, recognising the
need fo r t he aid o f “ independe nt exper ts ”
but omitted a controversial agreement
to seek the CEO’s retirement.
Reports suggest some of the ex-
Presidents are refusing to pay their
O’Cofaigh was president. But this is not
true. Bluebloc Digital was incorporated
in 2003, four years after O’Cofaigh
wrapped up his presidency.
There is another company, Blue Bloc,
owned by Margaret Graby and Odran
Graby, wife and son of CEO John, with
which Mandal got confused. If O’Cofaigh
employed it it was for negligible sums,
not so clearly demanding a tender
process.
Cutting through the confusion about
alleged nepotisms, O’Cofaigh wrote per-
fectly reasonably of the failure to seek
tenders: “None of us want a Rehab, a
Positive Action, a DSCPA situation”, to
the board – before resigning. With six
other RIAI eminences, including ex-
President Joan O’Connor.
O’Cofaigh has been the most
A SIGNIFICANT swathe of RIAI members are resentful
at the failure to reflect the reality of a profession
devastated – by reducing membership fees for members
in hardship. 60% of architects were made redundant
at some stage during the recession and incomes fell
concomitantly. According to a Europe-wide (ACE) survey
in 2013 the average income net of expenses and before
tax for a typical architect sole trader in Ireland in 2013
was €24,155. 70% of architects are now working,
20% of them part-time. There was less than half the
number of architects in 2012 (960) of the number in
2008 (1960). Average earnings for full-time architects
are €36,849. The European average is €29,014.
Reflecting then cascading morale, in Ireland in
2012 over 50% of architects thought they were
viewed “very poorly” or “quite poorly” by the
public. However, like all Irish professionals they
(49%) honestly think their clients love them.
Reality of hardship
All in
attendance,
including
President
Mandal,
agreed a
meeting would
be arranged
between the
CEO, Mandal
and the
mediator to
initiate the
removal of the
CEO. This did
not happen,
and two
weeks later
the mediation
conclusion
was concealed
from an EGM
“
[in fact the letter was
drafted on
13th November, 2014]
36 February 2015
POLITICS RIAI
Crucially, the
criteria for
hardship in
the RIAI were
determined
and operated
by John Graby.
There was
no appeals
procedure, and
no transparent
assessment
process. The
information he
required was
intrusive
“
membership fees until the CEO departs,
though nearly all of them seem adverse
to bringing negative publicity down
on their beleaguered institute and few
have the spine that O’Cofaigh and Joan
O’Connor manifested in resigning.
More dramatically still – since he
reports to them – is the mediation ses-
sion for Council members that was
organised in October 2014 in Bewleys
Hotel, on the M50.
The meeting was confidential. Nearly
all Council members, around twenty,
including the President Robin Mandal,
attended, with the exception, insofar as
Village could ascertain, of three.
The main topic of the day was again
the CEO and governance issues; and
unfortunately for John Graby, the agree-
ment by consensus was that the veteran
CEO must retire.
All in attendance, including Robin
Mandal, openly discussed matters in a
somewhat fraught atmosphere, and it
was agreed that immediately follow-
ing the conclusion of the day a meeting
would be arranged between the CEO,
Mandal and the mediator involved to
initiate the process of retirement of the
CEO, and succession.
This did not happen, and two weeks
later the mediation conclusion was con-
cealed at an RIAI EGM as, some might
say, was their duty and entitlement.
The position of the CEO was defended.
This repudiation of the mediation-
mandated strategy, it would appear,
was a significant factor in the subse-
quent resignations by the seven Council
members.
The first mention of this confiden-
tial process was by Robin Mandal in an
October letter to members, in breach
of the agreement, when he implied the
mediation process was a result and symp-
tom of lack of “cohesiveness” at Council
level and “the constant onslaught and
disruption by a minority”, though it is
arguable it was a constructive attempt
to advance discussions on the removal
of the CEO sensitively outside the offi-
cial Council structure in a confidential
forum necessarily remote from the influ-
ence of the CEO himself.
Graby’s position is compromised in a
number of respects: he is the conduit for
complaints against RIAI architects but
also an architect himself – a clear con-
flict. It is also bad practice to expect a
CEO to pursue complaints against those
who pay his salary. It is undesirable that
he is Director of an architects’ insurance
company which needs to get sensitive
information about the members who
pay his salary. And the provision for
the President to appoint arbitrators, for
which many RIAI members are quali-
fied, could lend itself to the no-doubt
inaccurate appearance of CEO influence
or favouritism, if for example the recent
resignees and Mandal/Graby loyalists
were in competition for appointment as
arbitrator.
The annual personal RIAI credit-card
bill for the CEO has in some years been
some tens of thousands of euro, rais-
ing jaded recessionary eyebrows. In
September 2013 the triennial gold medal
for achievement was awarded to Kevin
Roche, expat-architect and author of the
original – failed – scheme for Dublin’s
Spencer Dock, in the US. John Graby and
then-President Michelle Fagan flew over
for the weekend courtesy of the RIAI, to
New York to personally present Roche
with his medal. Mrs Graby also travelled
but paid for her own ticket.
On another occasion, Graby and then-
President Fagan visited China for a week,
together with subsidised, invited mem-
bers of a select number of Irish practices.
These happy few were part of a delega-
tion, not all of whom were subsidised, to
examine new business opportunities.
So – when at the AGM in September
2014 members discovered the CEO felt
it was appropriate to withhold details
of his salary and beneficial income from
the board of the RIAI, many felt dis-
proportionately indignant. Failure to
disclose other beneficial income to him,
his son or his spouse from related busi-
nesses also jars.
An accumulation of controversies and
some adverse publicity is frustrating for
members already under the economic
cosh.
But...things are improving for the con-
struction sector, the new RIAI Council
happily contains no dissentients, and
the reform group has no appetite for
further aggravation, least of all where
there is a risk to the standing of the RIAI
to which they have long as individuals
devoted themselves.
Mandal recently told members 2015
would be “the year of change” and has
implied Graby, whose contractual retire-
ment date is unknown, is on the verge of
leaving.
But as he turns 70 this month, the
CEO remains solidly in situ. •
architects still see themselves as popular with
clients
John Graby: solidly
in situ
February 2015 37
THERE was a provision for members going through hard times in the
RIAI up until 2014. The normal membership fee was €490, and the
reduced fee was €250 – for people who qualified.
Crucially, the criteria for hardship in the RIAI [see above] were
determined and operated by John Graby. There was no appeals procedure,
and no transparent assessment process. The information he required
was detailed tax-return data for both distressed member and spouse.
On receipt of this a determination would be made by Mr Graby. The
reason given for this intrusive process, at the time, was that some
members had been understating their salary to avail of the provision,
and that rather than – mere – proof of being on the live register, this
information was needed.
There was widespread unease among the approximately 700 members
who were asked for this very detailed personal information.
It is worth comparing the fee and the process with those of the rival
professional association, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)
which offers a hardship reduced fee of around €90. To avail of a reduced
fee in the RIBA, an applicant had only to fill out a simple one page
standard form [see above], and attach proof (usually a simple letter from
an accountant stating annual income).
Exacerbating the dissatisfaction, the CEO persistently told members
that their fee covered both membership of the RIAI and membership (as
required under the 2007 Act) of the Register of architects. The CEO and
RIAI inferred, many think incorrectly, that membership of the RIAI and
membership of the Register were embraced by the same fee. Significantly,
under the 2007 Act, there is a specific and legal provision for hardship
in registration. But the RIAI applied an identical process for registration
as it does for membership of the RIAI. This seemed like an implausible,
almost whimsical, interpretation of the 2007 Act whose provisions the
RIAI had, and have, the privilege of administering.
In response to all this the CEO removed the provision and replaced
membership charges with a flat rate of €450 per member in October
2013.
This is five times the RIBA equivalent rate.
Divisive ‘hardship’ provision
Very different approaches: the RIAI’s vs RIBA’s provisions for members in the event of hardship
[RIAI] [RIBA]
