Our Advisory Board

Liam Moore

Liam is founder and CEO of An Olive Branch, and a keen advocate of “a stitch in time saves nine” approach to intercepting conflict at the earliest possible opportunity in order to preserve relationships and minimise costs.  

A litigation lawyer for 25 years, his motto is “If you force it, it will break!”, which he describes as the inevitable result when two sides are pitched against each other in any adversarial (attack and defend, combat-style) environment to try to “win” their case by convincing the judge or adjudicator to impose their preferred solution on an unwilling opponent.

Even for the ‘winner’, the cost often subsequently proves to be too high where experience shows that the consequences of simply engaging in such processes, aside indeed from the forced and formal nature of such interventions and outcomes, not only destroys the very relationships between the disputants vis-à-vis each other, but also within their own organisations and outside.

Having seen that his winning clients have found that they can actually lose in the bigger picture, for the management and resolution of disputes Liam is now an absolute proponent of negotiated settlement compared to imposed outcomes, and of ADR and ODR as the best and most sustainable methods for long-lasting peace-keeping, relationship preservation and damage limitation.

Liam is also CEO of Ireland’s leading provider of Continuing Professional Development (‘CPD’) to the professions, with a venerable panel of expert speakers which includes the holders of the highest national and European offices in both the public and private sectors, and the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland. Prior to that, Liam was personal advisor to leading Irish, American and European political, business, diplomatic and charitable figures, and ran a successful law practice for many years before working in international real estate in Europe and the Middle East. He continues to be a Consultant to his legal colleagues, and has business interests in the hospitality sector.  

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is the world’s largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship, education and research, and Liam is a Program Director and Facilitator for the delivery of their world-leading entrepreneurship and innovation Kauffman FastTrac® programs to Irish and international companies, whether start-ups or existing businesses investigating next-stage growth and opportunity. 

Liam read Law at University College Cork, Ireland before going on to qualify as a Lawyer, a Mediator and a Collaborative Practitioner. He was a legal journalist and lecturer, and still works with many Irish law firms to raise their awareness and help them improve and promote their businesses through the effective use of technology.

 
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John Horgan

John is a former Chairman of the Labour Court in Ireland. He was an adviser to the Minister for Labour, Michael O'Leary TD, in the 1970s when many of Ireland’s current Industrial Relations institutions were developed.

He subsequently served as Deputy Chairman and Chairman of the Labour Court from 1977 to 1989 before joining GPA (Guinness Peat Aviation) as Senior Vice President that year.

John has since held positions as Human Resources Director with a number of prestigious multinational companies, including:

  • Warner Lambert and Pfizer

  • Analog Devices

  • Shannon Aerospace

  • GPA, Shannon

Since 2000, John is an independent Human Resources Consultant specializing in:

  • Strategic HR issues and change management.

  • Project management of Major Redundancy Programmes including negotiation of severance packages with trade unions

  • Advising companies on strategies in handling issues arising under the “Right to Bargain” legislation and alternative Employee Representation mechanisms.

  • Successfully investigated/mediated in many employee grievance issues including bullying and harassment cases.

  • Represented management in the negotiation and implementation of restructuring and change in a commercial semi-state body. This included the drafting and negotiation of a new a new procedural agreement with the trade unions.

  • Advice on voluntarily exit packages for senior employees, on behalf of both employees and employers.

John advises and represents both employers and employees, and also acts as an independent facilitator, mediator and arbitrator in Industrial Relations disputes.

 

Caroline Gill

Caroline was Insurance Ombudsman of Ireland from 1998 to 2005, responsible for the independent investigations and adjudication of disputes between consumers, small business and their insurance companies.  As Ombudsman she liaised with a number of Government bodies, in particular the Department of Finance and the Financial Regulator.

In 2005 the Insurance Ombudsman of Ireland and the Credit Institutions Ombudsman were merged in the statutory Financial Services Ombudsman’s Bureau, and that year Caroline was appointed as Deputy Financial Services Ombudsman by the then Minister for Finance, Mr Charley Mc Creevy T.D.  The Bureau resolved disputes between consumers and their financial service providers, and during her tenure she participated in TV and radio programmes and regularly contributed to all national newspapers regarding financial services.

In 2010 Caroline was then appointed a Financial Services Ombudsman in the UK, again for the resolution of disputes in the financial services industry.

Previously, Caroline was CEO of the Consumers’ Association of Ireland from 1990 – 1998, during which she again had a strong media profile and worked with Irish and UK newspapers, radio and TV.  As CEO she worked closely with the Consumers Associations in the UK and in Brussels where was appointed to the Consumers Consultative Committee in the European Commission (DG XX1V) and served on that committee and on other consumer committees in Brussels (including BEUC – the European Consumers Association), lobbying successfully on a number of issues including transparency in financial services, food safety, health issues and access to justice.

Caroline has also served on a number of Boards and committees in Ireland and Europe to include:

  • Irish Stock Exchange (Chair: Pensions committee; Chair: Admissions committee, member Audit committee)

  • Irish Red Cross Society

  • Pyrite Resolution Board, Dublin

  • LUAS Board

  • Food Safety Board (member Remuneration committee, member Appointments committee)

  • St Patricks Hospital, Dublin (Governor, and also Research and Ethics Committee member)

  • Trustee, Mater Dei Institute, College of Dublin City University

  • CPD Board (Training and Development: Legal Issues, Advisor and Lecturer).

  • Euro Change-over Board.

She was a member of Financial Services Network in the European Commission and the Consumer Consultative Committee.  Caroline was also an executive committee member of the British and Irish Ombudsman Association.

She is a graduate of the Corporate Governance Diploma from the Smurfit Business School and is member of Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, a member of the Marketing Institute and the Public Relations Institute of Ireland.

 

Sabine Walsh

Sabine is an Accredited Mediator and President of the Mediator’s Institute of Ireland. She left legal practice to move into mediation full-time in 2009, and now has a private mediation practice as well as working as a panel mediator for the State’s Family Mediation Service. 

She is Programme Director of the Postgraduate Certificate in Mediation and Conflict Resolution, and MA in Conflict Management at St. Angela’s College, Sligo (NUIG), and also provides mediation training for other agencies, including the Law Society of Ireland. 

Sabine is a member of the European Network of International Family Mediators (www.crossbordermediator.eu) and partners with various agencies on related research projects. She was a member of the expert panel which drafted the International Social Service’s Guide to International Family Mediation, published in 2014. 

She is a trained Professional Practice Consultant and holds qualifications in Direct Consultation with Children and Online Dispute Resolution. She is one of the regular writers for the Kluwer Mediation Blog (www.kluwermediationblog.com) and is co-editing Kluwer’s EU Mediation Handbook, due for publication in 2015. Her research interests include online mediation and online learning in mediation training, and comparative mediation regulation. She has an LLB and LLM. Her website is www.swmediation.com.

 

Prof. Jim Lucey

Prof. Jim Lucey is Medical Director (Master) of St Patrick’s Mental Health Services, Dublin, since 2008, and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin. 

His special interests are in health services management; General Adult Psychiatry specialising in clinical management of Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCD) and other Anxiety Disorders. He has more than 25 years’ experience in psychiatry, and in addition to medical management he maintains his clinical practice at St. Patrick`s where he works on the assessment, diagnosis and management of obsessive compulsive (OCD) and other anxiety disorders.

Prof. Lucey was educated at St. Michaels College in Dublin and at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) where he qualified in medicine in 1977. He trained in psychiatry at St. Patrick`s Hospital in Dublin and at the Maudsley Hospital in London, graduating with an MD from Trinity College, Dublin and a PhD from the University of London. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in London, as well as a member of the College of Psychiatry of Ireland.

In 1993 he was appointed Consultant Psychiatrist, and Director of Psychiatric Intensive Care in St. Bartholomew`s Hospital in London. He returned to Ireland in 1997 to become a Consultant Psychiatrist with the Northern Area Health Board (HSE) at Connolly Hospital working in the community of North West Dublin. In 2002 he was appointed to St. Patrick's where he became the Director of the Anxiety Disorders Service and also Consultant Psychiatrist with responsibility for electro-convulsive therapy. He has been a Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry at the University of London (1993-1997) at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and at The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (1998-2002) and is currently Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin.

Dr. Lucey's research includes studies into the biology of OCD which were completed while a JNP Moore Research Fellow at St. Patricks. Later while a Wellcome Trust Junior Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, he studied the use of functional brain-imaging to examine the biology of OCD, Panic disorder and Post-traumatic Disorder. In October 2006 he attended Harvard School of Public Health for "Leadership Development for Physicians in Academic Medical Centres" and again in 2008 for "Forces for Change" in health services.

Dr Lucey provides psychiatric assessment services to undergraduate students at The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). He teaches medical undergraduates and post graduate students of psychiatry at TCD. He gives public lectures and is a regular broadcaster on mental health matters on RTE radio featuring on Today with Pat Kenny, and speaks on mental health at CPD Board conferences.

 

Jackie Gallagher

Jackie Gallagher is founder and CEO of Q4PR (http://www.q4pr.ie/). He is one of Ireland’s most experienced public relations and public affairs specialists and is a trusted adviser to CEOs, senior executives and directors of national and international organisations. He offers a breadth of experience of developing and implementing communications strategies tailored to meet the needs of quoted companies, multinationals, private businesses, public bodies and professional groups.

Since Q4PR’s formation in 2003, Jackie has advised on:

  • Corporate communications

  • Reputation management

  • Crisis communications

  • Public affairs

  • Investor and media relations

Jackie is a former political advisor and a former business correspondent with The Irish Times. He has served as a member of the board of Trinity College, the University of Dublin, on the Board of Governors and Guardians at the National Gallery of Ireland and on the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

 

Brian Hutchinson

Brian is Associate Professor in the School of Law, University College Dublin, Ireland, where he has been a member of staff since 1991, and Vice Dean of the Law School from 1996 to 2007. 

A specialist in the fields of Commercial Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution, he has researched, written and lectured extensively on Arbitration and ADR, ODR, Company Law, Commercial Law, Contract Law and Agency, and Information Technology. 

Brian is Editor of the Commercial Law Practitioner Law Journal (ISSN 0791-895X) , and a member of the Editorial Board of the Irish Jurist Law Journal (ISSN 00211273); the Arbitration and ADR Journal; and the International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution (Eleven International Publishing, The Hague, Netherlands). 

He is also principal of GBH Dispute Resolution Consultancy which provides arbitration, mediation and ADR services, consultancy, and training. A chartered arbitrator and accredited mediator, Brian has served as Arbitrator, as Arbitrator’s Legal Advisor, as party Legal Consultant and as Mediator in a number of domestic and international arbitrations and conciliations.

 

Carmel Savage

Carmel has been running mediation courses for many years and is an accredited trainer and practitioner member of the Mediators Institute of Ireland.

The former Head of Social Work at several major hospitals in Australia and Ireland, Carmel qualified as Practitioner Mediator in 1994 and was instrumental in developing and implementing a professional family mediation training programme in Ireland and continued that commitment through her time as a member of the Mediator’s Institute of Ireland executive committee.

As regional manager with the state run Family Mediation Service of the Legal Aid Board, Carmel was part of the team responsible for putting the Family Mediation Service on a nationwide footing. She continues to work with the Family Mediation Service which recently amalgamated with the Legal Aid Board and combines her work as practitioner with her role as lecturer on the Masters in Conflict Resolution programme at NUI Maynooth.

In 2011 Carmel was selected as the Irish delegate to train as a trainer in cross border mediation and has since been given the brief of training mediation colleagues in the area of Child Abduction and developing partnerships with colleagues internationally. She is a member of the European Network of International Family Mediators. www.crossbordermediator.eu    

In addition to mediation Carmel holds qualifications in Conflict Coaching, Child Inclusive Mediation and Professional Supervision.  

Carmel Savage B.Soc.Sc. (NUI) CQSW (Edinburgh) Adv. Dip in teaching practice and supervision (NUI) registered practitioner and trainer MII and ACR.

 

Maria Carmody

Maria is President of the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Institute of Ireland. She is also Director of Corporate Affairs at the Irish College of Humanities & Applied Sciences, an independent third level college offering courses in counselling, psychotherapy, childcare and continuous professional development to Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC) undergraduate and postgraduate degree level, and to the Further Education and Training Awards Council (FETAC) level. Prior to this, Maria worked in Irish industry for over 20 years and has specialist knowledge in co-ordinating programme provision and engaging with statutory, voluntary and commercial providers to promote and advance the future development of the college across new areas of academic provision.

 

Finance

Martin Griffin

Martin is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, a member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers and the Project Management Institute.  He has circa 20 years’ experience in finance management, accounting and corporate finance having worked with Merrill Lynch, Barclays Bank and PriceWaterhouseCoopers in various roles. Martin has also worked in corporate finance for start-up and growth companies.