What is your career background? 

My early architectural career was in the private sector and then over 28 years ago I joined Limerick Corporation starting in a temporary position in the architects department.  My first 20 years were spent delivering numerous social housing, community and public realm projects and in 2013, I joined the change management team over the merge of the Limerick councils.  This role included delivery of capital office projects to accommodate the new merged teams and management of the expanded council buildings portfolio.  

Following on from this, I’m now Head of Facilities Management for the council’s corporate buildings since early 2020.  My council career to date has been a mix of serving the public initially on social housing projects and now serving my colleagues and the public who use the council offices. 

 
What does your role involve? 

As project architect I designed and managed in-house the construction of a range of social housing and community type projects.  Now over Facilities, my day-to-day role involves leading a team of ten staff to manage office safety, repairs and building maintenance, running of civic events and project management of office fit outs and building upgrades. It’s a varied and unpredictable workload and there’s never a dull moment.     
 
At present, we are organising several office and library moves to accommodate the opera development project in Limerick City.  Covid 19 has been a big challenge to the facilities team to keep the offices safe for essential staff based in the buildings, involving enhanced cleaning regimes, signage and reorganisation of offices and public counters.  It was a huge workload to adjust to the unknown risks of the sudden pandemic.  We also completed the upgrade of the council chamber to provide new remote meeting and conference facilities while the offices were quiet.

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

You’re serving the public, or in my case my colleagues too. There is great comradery among council staff, you make lifelong friends and get to know many different people both in the organisation and locally. A career in the council can give you opportunities to work in different areas and diversify your career. 

While working on social housing projects, I got familiar with the different communities in the city and, as a Dubliner, that was a great way to learn about Limerick. There’s also a good work-life balance which allowed me to advance my career while working part time when my kids were young. 

 
Why should someone consider a career with a local authority?

Working with a local authority provides a huge variety of work experience with excellent professional training opportunities and good structures around personal development. 

You can come in as Architect, like myself, and get to work in different construction areas.  Or like some of my colleagues, move from technical roles into senior management, all of us getting to work on different projects over our career for the benefit of the local community.