What is your career background? 

I spent eight years as a community warden in the Cranmore Regeneration Project. That role was about community development and keeping the community engaged in the regeneration process, working with them to tackle anti-social behaviour, being the dog warden, litter warden, traffic warden, dealing with housing issues, all of that. That was a great place to work, I really enjoyed it. Every day was something different and it’s great to see the difference and progress in the area. 

That gave me the basis to apply for the Traveller Liaison job when it came up and I have been doing that for the last four years. 

What does your role involve? 

I’m the Traveller Liaison Officer for the council so I deal with every Traveller issue that comes into the council - housing applications, looking after halting sites, supporting tenants to resolve issues that may arise, etc. I have a very good relationship built up with the Traveller Community in Sligo, they would come to me with issues and my job is to try to help them.

I work with a lot of different departments across the council to sort things out and get things done. That could be site maintenance, housing, homeless, estates, architects, etc. We all work together to get things done and it’s my job to keep everything flowing. We have a very good Traveller Accommodation Programme and we’ve made good progress in that over the last few years. 

What are the most rewarding things about working for a local authority?

It’s really rewarding to get things sorted out for people and make improvements. We just put an extension on for one of the families I work with, and they’re delighted. It’s great to see the excitement on someone’s face when something like that comes through. It’s nice to help people, you can only feel good about that.  

There’s great support within the council. The job is very varied, you don’t know from one day to the other what’s going to come in but I enjoy it. 

Why should someone consider a career with a local authority?

I would really recommend a career in a local authority. It’s very family friendly, there’s flexible working so you can drop your kids to school or take family friendly leave. 

There are great prospects too; you can move round and learn in so many different sections. You might start in planning, go to housing, go to finance, there’s great variety if you want it – and there’s never a dull moment!