MIIN Member Inland and Coastal Marina Systems remains buoyant, building robust jetties for clients worldwide
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After realising there was a market for jetties and pontoons that was not being met in Ireland, Oliver Shortall set up Inland and Coastal Marina Systems. The company now employs nearly 50 people and has built jetties for customers in Mexico, Australia, Britain and France
Picture: Barry Cronin
Oliver Shortall, founder and managing director of Inland and Coastal Marina Systems:
‘We’ve always taken the approach that every product we make should be built with robustness, so it’ll last.’
From its headquarters in Co Offaly, Inland and Coastal Marina Systems builds jetties which are up to 100 tons in weight and are used at large marinas around the world. The Banagher-based firm, founded in 2001, is the only business in Ireland that produces pontoons on home soil.
The company makes everything from giant commercial jetties to pontoons for rowing clubs, and also provides berthing products for super yachts. Inland and Coastal was born out of Banagher Concrete, a well-known concrete manufacturer in Offaly, according to Oliver Shortall, its founder and managing director.
Shortall said he had the idea to set up the company while working at Banagher Concrete after realising there was a market for jetties and pontoons that was not being met in Ireland.
“When I joined Banagher, they had just started developing floating pontoons,” he told the Business Post. “Between one thing and another they were very busy with other stuff, so it created an opportunity where I could see the demand for jetties.”
In 2001, Shortall bought out the jetty side of the business from Banagher Concrete. It proved to be a wise decision, as the Enterprise Ireland-backed company found a list of clients who needed reliable products and were finding it difficult to find an Irish business able to supply them.
“There was no one manufacturing in Ireland, so you were able to get your home market sorted out here,” Shortall said. “Then it was a case of planning to expand a bit further afield.”
Inland and Coastal now employs nearly 50 people and has built jetties for customers in Mexico, Australia, Britain and France. At home, it counts Waterways Ireland among its inland clients, and regularly wins contracts from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for coastal jetties.
“Because we came out of Banagher Concrete, we’ve always taken the approach that every product we make should be built with robustness, so it’ll last,” Shortall said. “And that’s what most people would associate us with – with a fairly robust jetty that they’d use in the commercial world as well.”
In recent years Inland and Coastal has also begun to operate in the burgeoning offshore wind market, building jetties for giant vessels that serve farms off the coast of Ireland.
“The vessels that those offshore wind farms use are very big, so they need a robust jetty, not an aluminium set-up,” Shortall said. “It has to be a fairly heavy-duty job.”
With a well-established presence in Ireland and a growing list of clients abroad, Inland and Coastal is now eyeing further growth in the offshore sector. “The wind farm product is something that we see as somewhere we can expand,” Shortall said. “We’ve had a couple of enquiries from US-based wind farms, and it’s clear that people have an interest in what we’re doing.”
“We’re happy with our market share, and we’re growing more and more in the UK and elsewhere. We’ve got plenty of work at the minute.”