Village Dec-Jan. Out now.

Chairman and Secretary General of Irish Red Cross resign following this Village article

Shoddy governance, low staff morale and a rash of inexplicable resignations at the Red Cross mean it’s time for a change.
by Michael Smith

The venerable irish Red Cross (IRC) is controlled by four or five people who serve on what is called the Executive Committee (EC) – a governance structure comprising only volunteers.  The professionally-paid staff, including the Secretary General, who is essentially an administrative officer for the EC, have little real autonomy.  As a result, sources have told Village, the IRC, like many other NGOs, is controlled by people who are not full time professionals and this is reflected in many aspects of the organisation’s operations.

Ireland’s Most Influential 100, 2009

We asked an informed and not unrepresentative group of people to list who they think are the most influential people in Ireland; and to rank them unattributably. We did not seek to influence contributors’ views of what “influential” means, except to say that it extends beyond politics and perhaps embraces “making a difference in society”; and that the candidates must be alive. The contributors did not express any views on the merits of the people they ranked. We aggregated the contributions mathematically to form the list below.