Jason Fisher, chair of ACE Northern Ireland, reflects on a very busy 2025 for ACE NI and looks forward to the challenges and opportunities for our industry going into 2026.
We are looking forward to a very busy 2026 with a series of senior level engagement meetings, ensuring the voices of ACE members in Northern Ireland are heard loud and clear by both local and national government.
I took over as chair of ACE NI in early 2025 from Andrew Campbell, after his very successful four years as the NI chair. Many thanks should be accorded to Andrew for his leadership, foresight and significant contribution on behalf of all our members during his tenure – I realise that I have a very hard act to follow.
In addition to representing NI at the quarterly ACE Advisory Board meetings held in London, ACE NI has had several online and face-to-face meetings during 2025.
We welcomed our CEO Kate Jennings and several members of staff from ACE HQ to Belfast in April for our hybrid virtual/ face-to-face meeting, alongside Graeme Tinney from Griffiths and Armour for a presentation on current PI topics of interest. We also planned our events for the remainder of 2025, including a flagship engagement event at Parliament buildings in November.
At our meeting in September, we had a very interesting, informative and engaging presentation from Strategem - now known as Connect - on how to engage politically, at the right level, ensuring that we get our message across effectively and efficiently, to get the right results.
Our committee relished and actively contributed and participated in this engagement, with insightful discussions taking place.
We also had an update from Robert Stoke on ACE Emerging Professionals. The NI committee is delighted to support the re-establishment of a new Emerging Professional Network in Northern Ireland, which will be an excellent way to engage and empower the next generation of consultants and engineers.
We had a great turnout from members at this meeting which was really encouraging to see.
Our flagship engagement event in 2025 was our drinks reception at Parliament Buildings in November, where we had deputy first minister Emma Little-Pengally MLA and several other MLAs in attendance. We had more than 80 members, clients, colleagues, potential ACE members and friends present, and we were particularly delighted to be joined by several members from our sister organisation The Association of Consulting Engineers of Ireland (ACEI), which just happened to be having its board meeting in Belfast on the same day!
We share many common issues, concerns, challenges and opportunities with ACEI on this island, with whom we hope to collaborate more closely and have further joint events in the future. Special thanks from ACE NI must go to Ben Brittain for his superb behind-the-scenes work he undertook to ensure the fantastic success of this event.
At this event we were also pleased to confirm that a new NI EP chair had been selected, Aine Meehan. Work can now start supporting Aine as she builds the NI EP committee in 2026, I know she is an excellent choice and is just the right person with the right qualities for this demanding role.
Further engagement meetings in 2025 included participation in the Construction Professionals Council for Northern Ireland (CPCNI), which represents 19 professional bodies with over 9,000 members in NI.
On behalf of ACE NI, I have also attended several meetings with the Northern Ireland Construction Group at joint public sector engagement sessions, where we are currently assisting with the assessment of whole life carbon in construction and infrastructure in NI.
It has been a real pleasure to represent our members in Northern Ireland engaging and advocating on behalf our collective interests.
At a time when the political and economic climate remains uncertain, this type of engagement at the most senior levels is critical to maintain an ongoing dialogue with officials.
This year is shaping up to be as busy, engaging and interesting as ever. Confirmed events so far include:
17 February: Online meeting
16 June: Technical visit – details to be confirmed
10 November: Technical presentation and members' lunch
For further information on ACE work in Northern Ireland and how to get involved, visit our website. Or contact Jason@beattieflanigan.com
