President McAleese presents awards to graduates of North-South public sector training programme

22 February 2007
Belfast City Hall

The third North/South and Cross-Border Public Sector Training Programme – organised by the Centre for Cross Border Studies, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and Co-operation Ireland – concluded with an event at Belfast City Hall at which President Mary McAleese presented course certificates to the 30 graduates. The event was hosted by the Lord Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Pat McCarthy. The pre-lunch speaker was Trevor Ringland, co-chair of the One Small Step campaign and former rugby international. The fourth programme – bringing together another 30 civil servants and public officials from both Irish jurisdictions to learn about cross-border co-operation in public finance and governance, business and economics, and at governmental, NGO, local authority and community level – will run from 1 March to 21 June 2007.

President Mary McAleese, Dr Martin McAleese, Lord Mayor of Belfast Councillor Pat McCarthy, Belfast City Council Chief Executive Mr Peter McNaney and SEUPB Chief Executive Mr Pat Colgan join the organisers of and participants on the training course at Belfast City Hall.

Every participant on the North/South and Cross-Border Public Sector Training Programme was linked with a cross-border partner to undertake a joint assignment. The three assignments that were awarded distinctions in the third course were:

The Wind that Shakes the Border: An Examination of Setting Up a Cross-Border Training and Accreditation System for Installers of Renewable Energy Technologies

Nuala Crossin, Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Belfast, and Gerard Monks, Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Dublin

The Possibility of Introducing an All-Island Visitor Pass to Heritage Sites owned by the National Trust (Northern Ireland) and the Office of Public Works (Republic of Ireland),

Noel Sheahan, Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, Dublin, and Norman Houston, Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Belfast

The Case for Expanding the CAWT-sponsored eMed Renal Information System from the Border Region to all the Island of Ireland

Yvonne Gregory, Co-operation and Working Together, L’Derry, and Shay McGovern, Department of Health and Children, Dublin

See the speech  [47 kb]