"My background has always been housing. I have a degree in Property Valuation and Management. I was always interested in housing and construction.

After college I went straight into Property Management and worked in the private market for a number of years. I then specialised in social housing and worked in another Approved Housing Body for over four years. Social Housing is totally different to the private side of housing. I completed a further course through the ICSH/CIH and then started here in CHI.

The main reason I left my last job was that there was no career progression.  I wanted that   progression, and I knew I’d have that with Co-operative Housing Ireland as it was a larger company.

With this new role, the thing I’m most excited about is seeing all the new developments I will be managing. When I was a Housing Officer, I was familiar with all developments in Clare, Limerick and Tipperary, but now I’m going to be working across fourteen counties. I’ll be seeing how things are run in those areas and how we can tweak and change things to run more efficiently. It’s great to see the organisation grow and meet new Tenants who will be moving into their new homes.

The Housing Services restructure is challenging and exciting at the same time. Like anything, if you’re used to doing something one way for years it’s difficult to change it. We’ve brought in standardisation across housing services policies, procedures, and packs over the last year. We’re looking to standardise our information and familiarisation sessions for new tenants and make them accessible to all in a range of different ways.

I’ll be managing the Galway, Limerick, Cork and Wexford offices. I’ll be working with Alan Sheerins, Tracey Gilhooley, Jane Sheehan McGrath, Evan Aylward and Majella Asple.

We’ll be streamlining the allocation process and making it more efficient. We’ll be a working as a team on allocations, which will make it faster too. All three teams across housing services, neighbours, safer neighbourhood and income and inclusion will work together going forward throughout the process of onboarding new tenants.

Neighbourhood Specialists will also have their own regions. These are mostly the same as before the restructure, but some areas have been split up so we can have at least two Neighbourhood Specialists who have a relationship with the relevant Local Authority.

I think the changes are great. We are now much more focused on our specific tasks which is getting people into their new homes as quickly as possible. This change will have a knock-on effect in freeing up space in refuges, shelters, emergency accommodation, and so on.

We are working to further strengthen our relationships with Local Authorities and mitigate any possible delays with allocations. There is a new Code of Practice from the department of housing, which is being implemented, under that we have an advanced notice period. The process is streamlined and all information is transferred in a more seamless way."

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