Environment Ireland

Ciarán Cuffe is Minister of State with special responsibility for sustainable transport, horticulture, planning and heritage. This work is spread over three departments – Transport; Environment, Heritage & Local Government and Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. He has been a Green Party TD for Dún Laoghaire since 2002 and represented Dublin’s south inner city on Dublin City Council from 1991-2003. Ciarán has campaigned on climate change issues for over a decade and wants Ireland to be a world leader in sustainable development policies at home and abroad. He is a member of Amnesty International, An Taisce and the Dublin Cycling Campaign.

Will Day was appointed in 2009 as Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC). He is also Special Advisor to the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and Sustainability Advisor to PricewaterhouseCoopers UK. Prior to taking up his role with SDC, he spent around twenty years working with a range of relief and development NGOs (Save the Children, OXFAM, and Opportunity Trust) initially involved in large scale humanitarian responses in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia. He was involved in the establishment of Comic Relief, and was responsible for setting up its grants programme for Africa.

Paul Dunne is the Director at Arup responsible for Building Services, Building Physics, Sustainability and Fire Engineering. He has extensive experience from working on a wide variety of projects in Ireland and overseas, across a broad range of sectors; commercial, industrial, institutional and retail. Paul has also been closely involved in the development of sustainable solutions for larger scale urban developments, ensuring the development of holistic solutions which embrace effective and commercially sustainable solutions.

Professor Paul K. Gorecki is a Research Professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). He joined the ESRI in 2009. Since joining the Institute he has engaged in research on competition and regulation in areas such as household waste collection, municipal waste management policy and climate change. Together with ESRI colleagues, he authored An Economic Approach to Municipal Waste Management Policy in Ireland, commissioned by Dublin City Council.

John Gormley TD is Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, a position he took up in June 2007. He represents the Dublin South East constituency for the Green Party, having been first elected to the Dáil in June 1997. He is currently party spokesperson on foreign affairs, defence and health and children. He is a member of Earthwatch, Amnesty International and the Chartered Institute of Water Management.

Maria Graham has been the Principal Officer in the Water Services Investment Section of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government since April 2009. This section is responsible for the management of the Exchequer capital provision for new water and wastewater infrastructure which is delivered through the Water Services Investment and Rural Water Programmes.

Dr Constantin Gurdgiev is Head of Macroeconomics with the IBM Institute for Business Value, Global Center for Economic Development. He has a background in macroeconomics and finance and has more than 15 years experience of international consultancy and academic work in the areas of strategy, economic analysis and financial markets. He holds a PhD in macroeconomics and finance from Trinity College, Dublin, and Master’s degrees in macroeconomics and mathematics from Johns Hopkins University and UCLA, respectively.

Teri Hayes is an Environmental Services Director of WYG Ireland. She has 19 years experience managing a wide range of environmental projects for both private and public bodies. Her specialist areas are water resource management and environmental impact assessment. She is also the current President of the Irish group of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH).

Mary Kelly is the Director General of the Environmental Protection Agency, having taken up the post in May 2002. Mary holds a PhD in Chemistry from Trinity College Dublin, and an MBA from Dublin City University. She previously worked with IBEC where she was involved in policy development in the environmental area. She was involved in setting up REPAK, the packaging recycling initiative. She was also a member of Comhar and the Advisory Committee of the EPA.

Dara Lynott is a Director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Enforcement. He was previously a Programme Manager within the Office, which is dedicated to the implementation and enforcement of environmental legislation in Ireland.

John McCarthy has been Assistant Secretary, Environment Division, at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government since February 2010. Prior to this he was Assistant Secretary in charge of the Department's Housing Division. He previously served as Principal Officer in a number of the Department’s areas of activity, including affordable housing and waste management. He has been a member of the Department since 1991, having previously worked in a number of other Departments, including the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Central Statistics Office.

Brian Motherway s Chief Operations Officer at the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. He is responsible for SEAI’s work on policy analysis, statistics and modelling, as well as the promotion of green enterprise. He was previously head of SEAI’s Industry Division, overseeing SEAI’s support and advice programmes to industry and business. During this time he was also responsible for a range of efficiency policy initiatives. Prior to joining SEAI he worked for more than 10 years as a consultant in energy and environmental policy. He holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in engineering and a PhD in sociology.

Micheál O Cinnéide is Director of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Assessment, with responsibility for monitoring, assessment and reporting on the general state of the environment, as well as funding of   environmental research.

Leo O’Reilly took up the post of Permanent Secretary at the Department of the Environment in August 2009. He is the Minister’s principal advisor on all aspects of the Department’s responsibilities and is the Accounting Officer for all departmental expenditure. He was formerly Permanent Secretary at the Department of Finance and Personnel (DFP) from July 2008, and was Second Permanent Secretary at DFP since October 2007.

Deborah Spence is head of the Planning and Environment Group at Arthur Cox. She and her team advise on all aspects of planning and environmental law, including waste management liability, corporate regulatory compliance, contaminated sites liability, all aspects of permitting and licensing, environmental impact assessment and environmental and planning issues arising in major infrastructural projects.