Longford Precast & Prestressed Concrete Products Ltd is one of Ireland’s premier suppliers of all types of concrete products. Irish Tractor & Agri heard more from director Damien Mulleady about the company which last year celebrated 45 years in existence.
Set-up in 1972 by the late Frankie Mulleady, alongside his brother Anthony, Longford Precast & Prestressed Concrete Products Ltd is operated today by Anthony, his nephew Damien along with other members of the Mulleady family, Niall, Donna, Noreen and Brendan.
Another family member who is sorely missed is Sean Mulleady Jnr who played a huge roll in building the business along with Anthony’s brother Michael and for a period in the early days Sean Mulleady Snr. To support them they have a strong management team alongside a highly skilled and dedicated workforce.
Damien, who is a son of the man who founded the company, Frankie was good enough to take time from a hectic schedule to give Irish Tractor & Agri the rundown on one of three divisions at the Mulleady Group.
“Business is pretty good at the minute,” he stated. “There’s definitely an increase in sales and output in the precast sectors and we’re hitting more areas of Ireland than previous. We’re getting more and more calls from areas that we haven’t done business in before.”
Mulleady Waste is the largest of the group’s three companies and employs close to 100 staff. The precast division employs approx. 30 so it’s a huge asset to the locality.
Mulleady Waste provides a door-to-door wheelie bin service all throughout counties Longford and Westmeath and operates a fully fully-licensed recycling facility and picking line and also operates a fleet of 25 to 30 vehicles.
As for Mulleady Commercials, it operates a state-of-the-art garage facility where maintenance work is carried out on the Mulleady Waste and Longford Precast fleets along with handling outside work.
The latter part of the group has been on the go for the past eight years and its workshop boasts all the latest equipment to carry out pre-DOE testing, brake tests and wheel alignment as well as repairs, maintenance and servicing of commercial vehicles.
“It’s a full on modern garage facility with all the necessary equipment,” explained Damien, “and we also have an engineering division to carry out all types of refurbishments, iron works and all kinds of steel fabrication. Between qualified mechanics, steel fabricators and welders, about ten people are employed in that division.
“In addition to the garage, we also have a store with parts and accessories for lorries. Our location is ideal for taking on outside work; between our own fleet and the outside work, we are kept busy.”
As for Longford Precast & Prestressed Concrete Products Ltd, it is the longest-running company in the Mulleady Group with most of its work being primarily for the agricultural sector.
Damien outlined that approximately 70 per cent of the work for this division is geared towards the pig and cattle farming industry.
“A lot of the products we manufacture are for new pig and cattle buildings,” he confirmed. “Concrete flooring, slats, support beams, wall panels and suspended passages are the most popular products.
“We do a lot of cut and bent reinforcement steel for agri buildings, house builds, rafts foundations etc. It’s quite a busy area for us and it’s something we’ve been doing for over 20 years now.”
Everything is manufactured on site and supplied and fitted if required.
Recently, the company have carried out a couple of projects for Kiernan’s Pig Producers in both Cavan and Longford – both of which were “sizeable jobs”, according to Damien.
They also carry a lot of work for J&W Farms and Future Pigs in the west of Ireland on a regular basis.
“We’d be doing a lot of bespoke products for our clients outside agri as well. We make precast products for installation into water treatment tanks both here and in the UK.”
So what’s the secret to it? How have the Mulleadys made their company such a success story and how do they continue to have that success year after year?
“We’re competitive,” Damien stated plainly. “We have a good team designing our products here and there’s also a good team installing the products. Overall, it’s a strong group and we offer a good back up service.
“It’s still a competitive business and you do have to be very competitive to try and be successful.”
Damien has been working with the company since 1991, while his uncle Anthony remains one of the only original founders left.
Anthony has been the backbone of the companies throughout the years, and his expert business knowledge and experience has played the most important role in the huge growth and success of all the companies over the last 30 years.
As farmers (and others) nationwide will readily testify, Longford Precast & Prestressed Concrete Products Ltd manufactures concrete products that are second to none.
“We take pride in what we do. As a family business, there is huge pride at stake and we try to maintain a very high standard across all aspects of the operation. We’ve been making slats for over 40 years and we’re still going strong, so we must be doing something right.
“We also do normal day-to-day precast for houses – lintels, sills, capping, fencing etc.- and we supply concrete products made to order for water treatment facilities in the UK. In conjunction with our engineering division, we are diversifying into different areas, using our own moulds. We won’t rule anything out,” Damien concluded.
Longford Precast & Prestressed Concrete Products Ltd.,
The Mulleady Group,
Cloonaugh,
Drumlish,
Co. Longford.
Tel: 043 3324128/3324145
Fax: 043 3324264
Email: [email protected]
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 6 No 4, June/July 2018
Longford Precast, Prestressed Concrete Products
