The Optus Glean promise: predictability
Three pillars. Three commitments. No exceptions.
Predictable cost. One fixed monthly fee, set against a defined scope and an annual indexed review. No variable hours. No surprise invoices. No padded callout charges. Budgeted once, paid by Direct Debit, reviewed once a year.
Predictable presence. The site is cleaned every day it is meant to be cleaned. A named primary cleaner is rostered to your contract, supported by a named relief who is already vetted, inducted, and trained on the same colour-coded system and IPC standard. The schedule does not depend on whether one person is available on one day.
Predictable freedom. A single point of accountability. One contract. One named manager. One number to call. Cleaning is no longer a problem the office has to manage — it is a service that runs.
Why cleaning in Dublin is structurally hard to get right
Most cleaning provision in Ireland — including in healthcare-adjacent settings — is delivered by a workforce that is structurally part-time and casual. A significant proportion of operatives across the sector also work as healthcare assistants in nursing homes, residential care, and acute hospitals. Cleaning shifts are typically taken when healthcare shifts are not available, and released when they are. This pattern is consistent with CSO labour data on accommodation, food, and administrative-support employment, and it is the underlying reason that buyers across Ireland encounter inconsistency from agencies they have contracted in good faith.
The pattern is reinforced by two background pressures specific to Dublin. Housing affordability limits the catchment for any role paying at or near the minimum wage. The Contract Cleaning Employment Regulation Order rate of €14.80 per hour for 2026, set under the Labour Court's sectoral employment framework, sits close enough to flexible care-sector pay that operatives drift toward whichever shift pays slightly more on the day. Both pressures pull cleaning staff away from contracted shifts and toward casual healthcare work.
The result, from the buyer's perspective, is the experience most practice managers, facilities leads, and procurement officers in Dublin describe: a clean that is half-completed when the contracted cleaner is available, missed entirely when they are not, and accompanied by recurring conversations with the agency about cover that may or may not arrive.
This is the structural problem Optus Glean is built to solve. Our operatives are fully PAYE-employed with guaranteed weekly hours, paid leave, and pension contributions under Irish auto-enrolment. They are paid above the ERO floor deliberately — because the structural reliability of the service depends on the cleaner choosing to remain in the role rather than rotating through casual healthcare shifts. A named primary cleaner is assigned to your site, supported by a named relief, both Garda-vetted and trained to Optus Glean's documented HIQA-aligned IPC standard.
Commercial Carpet and Floor Cleaning in Dublin
Dublin's commercial premises take a beating. Over half a million people commute into the city daily, tracking dirt, moisture, and grit across office carpets, retail floors, hotel lobbies, and public buildings. Grafton Street sees 40,000 footfalls per day. Henry Street is similar. Dundrum Town Centre, Blanchardstown Centre, and Liffey Valley each process millions of visitors annually. This volume of foot traffic destroys floor coverings rapidly unless they receive regular professional care.
Optus Glean provides commercial carpet cleaning and hard floor care across all of County Dublin. We clean carpets in offices on Baggot Street, retail floors on Grafton Street, hotel lobbies in Ballsbridge, healthcare floors in hospitals, and warehouse floors in Park West. Our teams use professional truck-mounted and portable extraction equipment, low-moisture encapsulation systems, and industrial scrubber-dryers to deliver results that extend floor life and maintain professional appearance.
Carpet Cleaning Methods
Hot Water Extraction (Steam Cleaning)
Hot water extraction is the gold standard for deep carpet cleaning. Our truck-mounted machines inject heated water and cleaning solution deep into the carpet pile at high pressure, then immediately extract the dirty solution along with embedded dirt, allergens, bacteria, and stains. This method is recommended by carpet manufacturers as the most effective deep clean.
Best for: Annual or bi-annual deep cleans, heavily soiled carpets, stain removal, allergen reduction, end of tenancy cleans.
Drying time: 4 to 8 hours (we schedule for Friday evening so carpets are dry by Monday).
Dublin pricing: €3 to €5 per sqm.
Encapsulation
Encapsulation is a low-moisture carpet cleaning method ideal for maintenance cleaning. A polymer-based solution is worked into the carpet using a rotary machine. The polymers crystallise around dirt particles as they dry, forming brittle capsules that are removed by normal vacuuming. The result is a clean, bright carpet with minimal disruption.
Best for: Monthly or quarterly maintenance, offices that cannot be closed overnight, time-critical situations.
Drying time: 1 to 2 hours.
Dublin pricing: €2 to €3.50 per sqm.
Bonnet Cleaning
Bonnet cleaning uses a rotary machine with an absorbent pad to remove surface-level dirt from commercial carpets. It is fast and low-moisture, making it suitable for interim maintenance between deep cleans. Not recommended as a standalone deep cleaning method, but effective as part of a planned carpet care programme.
Hard Floor Services
Dublin's commercial premises feature a wide range of hard floor types, each requiring specific cleaning and maintenance approaches:
Vinyl and Linoleum
The most common commercial floor in Dublin offices, healthcare facilities, and retail units. We provide machine scrubbing, stripping of old polish layers, re-sealing, and buffing. Regular maintenance extends vinyl floor life from 10 to 15+ years. Pricing: €3 to €8 per sqm for strip, seal, and re-coat.
Ceramic and Porcelain Tile
Common in washrooms, kitchens, and reception areas. Machine scrubbing with rotary brushes removes embedded dirt from tiles and grouting. We also provide grout sealing and anti-slip treatment. Pricing: €3 to €6 per sqm.
Natural Stone (Marble, Granite, Limestone, Terrazzo)
Dublin's Georgian buildings, banking halls, hotel lobbies, and premium offices often feature natural stone floors. These require specialist cleaning with pH-neutral products, diamond polishing, and sealing. Incorrect cleaning damages natural stone permanently. Optus Glean uses trained stone floor technicians for all natural stone work in Dublin. Pricing: €8 to €20 per sqm depending on stone type and condition.
Timber and Engineered Wood
Increasingly common in Dublin offices and retail spaces. We provide machine cleaning, re-oiling, and light sanding for timber floors. Heavy sanding and full refinishing can be arranged through our specialist partners. Pricing: €4 to €10 per sqm.
Polished Concrete
Popular in Dublin tech offices, restaurants, and retail. Polished concrete needs regular dust mopping, damp mopping with pH-neutral cleaner, and periodic re-sealing to maintain its shine and stain resistance. Pricing: €2 to €5 per sqm.
Dublin Carpet Cleaning Pricing
| Service | Price per sqm | Typical Office (200 sqm) |
|---|---|---|
| Hot water extraction | €3 – €5 | €600 – €1,000 |
| Encapsulation | €2 – €3.50 | €400 – €700 |
| Vinyl strip, seal & re-coat | €3 – €8 | €600 – €1,600 |
| Tile & grout deep clean | €3 – €6 | €600 – €1,200 |
| Natural stone polishing | €8 – €20 | €1,600 – €4,000 |
How Optus Glean handles staff shortages
Every Optus Glean contract is staffed on a redundancy model rather than a single-person model. A named primary cleaner is assigned to the site at contract start. A named relief is assigned alongside them. Both are PAYE-employed by Optus Glean, both are Garda-vetted, both are inducted on the site's specific layout, access protocols, and colour-coded equipment system, and both are trained to the same documented HIQA-aligned IPC standard. Substitution is built into the contract from the first day, not arranged on the day cover is needed.
Sick day cover. When the primary cleaner is unable to work, the named relief is deployed. The office site contact is notified by 06:30 on the morning of the absence by SMS or email, with the name of the relief who is attending. The relief follows the same task list, uses the same equipment, and finishes within the same window. The standard of clean is unchanged because the relief was prepared for this scenario before the absence happened.
Annual leave cover. Annual leave is rostered weeks in advance and the relief is scheduled to cover the full leave period. The office is informed at the start of the leave period — not on the morning leave begins. This is the same model used in clinical rota management: known absences are pre-staffed, not improvised.
Long-term cover. If the primary cleaner is absent for more than two weeks (extended illness, parental leave, bereavement leave), cover is drawn from the wider trained bench rather than relying on the single named relief. The office is kept informed of the cover plan, the named individuals involved, and the expected duration. Continuity of standard is maintained because every operative on the bench is trained to the same documented standard.
Permanent reassignment. If the primary cleaner moves to a new permanent role within Optus Glean — promotion, relocation, retirement — the relief is promoted to primary on a planned timetable, a new relief is trained on the site, and both are introduced to the office before the handover takes effect. There is no day on which the office discovers, after the fact, that their cleaner has changed.
Substitution is Optus Glean's operational problem, not the office's risk to absorb. The buyer pays a fixed monthly fee for a defined scope to be delivered, every day it is meant to be delivered. The mechanism by which we deliver it — primary, relief, bench, retraining — is our cost to manage and our risk to carry.
High-Traffic Areas in Dublin
Certain Dublin locations experience extreme foot traffic that demands intensive floor care programmes:
- Grafton Street retail — 40,000+ daily footfalls. Retail carpets and hard floors need weekly or fortnightly maintenance cleaning and monthly deep cleans.
- Henry Street and Jervis Centre — Similar footfall to Grafton Street. Entrance matting and transition zones take the heaviest wear.
- Dundrum Town Centre — Ireland's largest shopping centre. Common area floors and tenant unit floors need continuous maintenance.
- Corporate lobbies in Docklands — Polished stone and engineered timber in reception areas of Google, Meta, and other headquarters need daily attention and quarterly deep treatment.
- Hotel corridors and lobbies — Heavy-duty carpet in hotel corridors needs monthly extraction cleaning to prevent matting and discolouration.
Why Regular Floor Cleaning Saves Money
Replacing commercial carpet costs €25 to €60 per sqm installed. A 500 sqm office re-carpet costs €12,500 to €30,000. Regular deep cleaning extends carpet life by 3 to 5 years, meaning a cleaning investment of €2,000 to €4,000 per year can defer a €20,000 replacement. The same applies to hard floors — regular sealing and maintenance prevents the need for costly restoration or replacement.
Frequently asked questions
How much does office cleaning cost in Ireland in 2026?
A corporate office is priced as a fixed monthly fee per site (or per floor, for multi-tenant buildings), tied to a defined scope and frequency. The Contract Cleaning ERO 2026 sets a €14.80/hour labour floor across the sector, but reputable providers quote the contract — multi-year term, annual indexed review, single monthly Direct Debit — not the hour. Pre-opening reset windows and out-of-hours deep cleans are inside the fee.
What standards apply to office cleaning in Ireland?
The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 obliges the employer to maintain a safe workplace, supported by the General Application Regulations 2007. The cleaning programme should produce a documented audit trail — chemical SDS, signed-off task records, training register — that supports the office manager's safety statement and ESG reporting on supply-chain labour standards.
Why is cleaning consistency such a problem in Irish office buildings?
Most Irish cleaning provision is delivered by part-time or casual operatives, frequently subcontracted from one agency to another without disclosure, often paid at or near the ERO floor with no continuity to the site. The result is a different cleaner most weeks, no real quality baseline across floors, and tenant complaints that surface six months into a 36-month contract.
What does ESG-aligned cleaning supply actually mean?
ESG-aligned cleaning means the labour in your supply chain is documented and lawful: PAYE-employed staff (not casual), paid above the Contract Cleaning ERO €14.80/hour floor, with paid leave and PRSI/pension contributions. It also means the chemical regime has SDS on file, waste streams are tracked under the Waste Management Acts, and the provider can answer a tenant or auditor question on day one. ESG is not a sticker — it is auditable supply-chain integrity.
What's the difference between PAYE and casual cleaning contracts in corporate?
A PAYE-employed cleaner is on payroll with the company that signs the contract, paid above the Contract Cleaning ERO floor, with paid leave and pension. A casual or self-employed operative is none of those things — and is often subcontracted in via a labour agency the buyer never signed with. PAYE staffing is the only model that supports a named primary cleaner per floor with continuity, and the only one that survives an ESG supply-chain audit.
How do I evaluate a cleaning provider for a multi-floor office?
Three checks. One: are the operatives PAYE-employed by the company that signs the contract, or subcontracted? Ask for a written commitment, not a tagline. Two: who is the named primary cleaner and named relief per floor or zone? Three: can the provider produce a transparent reporting pack — daily/weekly logs, audit scores, tenant feedback — that ties scope to evidence?
What should be in a cleaning contract for a corporate office?
Scope and frequencies per zone (workstations, meeting rooms, washrooms, kitchens, lift lobbies, reception), pre-opening reset window, named primary cleaner and named relief, the chemical regime with SDS, ESG and supply-chain confirmations, fixed monthly fee, annual indexed review, transparent KPIs and reporting, and a clean exit clause. No per-hour pricing. No undisclosed subcontracting.
How often should an office be professionally cleaned?
A typical corporate office runs a daily out-of-hours core clean (workstations, washrooms, kitchens, communal areas), a pre-opening morning reset where occupancy is heavy, weekly periodic tasks (high-level dusting, glass), and quarterly or six-monthly deep cleans (carpets, soft furnishings, fabric). In Dublin, multi-tenant buildings often add a midday washroom check and lift-lobby reset.
Related Cleaning Services in Dublin
Office Cleaning Dublin
Daily contract cleaning for Dublin offices of all sizes.
Pressure Washing Dublin
External hard surface cleaning for Dublin commercial premises.
End of Tenancy Cleaning Dublin
Add carpet cleaning to your end of tenancy deep clean.
Last reviewed: 2026-05-06