Emerging from UCG with an engineering degree into the gloomy economy of 1989, a major career decision was to go to London to look for work and experience for 3 to 4 years. I did get a series of jobs in and around London and the 3 to 4 years turned into 11.

During this time I completed a MSC in Building Services Engineering (1992), which helped me get a job in the Building Research Establishment (BRE – www.bre.co.uk ), where I remained for 7 years, ending up as a Projects Manager in the Energy Efficiency Division.

This position was very interesting and the work/research was cutting-edge. Other advantages about working in BRE was the flexi-time system which most of us used, the diverse nature of the work, the training opportunities which we were positively encouraged to undertake and the good, decent people that I found myself working with.

I then left BRE and went working for another organisation involved with Lifetime Costings in the building industry, specifically in Public Private Partnerships. While the salary in this job was perhaps 20% higher that what I finished on in BRE, the nature of the work was much less interesting. I only remained in this job for a year as my girlfriend at the time (my wife now and mother of my three daughters) and myself wanted to return to Ireland, and we were told that the Celtic Tiger was hungry for workers.

One decision we made on returning was not to apply for any jobs in Dublin....as we heard too many horror stories about traffic jams, child minding costs and stupid house prices.

After spending the summer months on the family farm in Roscommon, I applied for the position of Manager of the Cork City Agency (part of Cork City Council) and started this job in Sept 2000. This again was a very interesting position and culminated with the creation of the Lifetime Lab (www.lifetimelab.ie) from the mothballed old Victorian Water Works in Cork city.

While I have been working for Cork City Council, I returned to College in UCC to undertake a part-time post graduate Diploma in Geographic Information Systems and I also did the IPA/NUI Certificate in Local Government Studies. More recently, I completed a part-time MBA with DCU in 2008.

All of these three courses were fully paid and supported (in terms of time off and normal expenses) by Cork City Council and /or the Local Government Management Services Board (LGMSB). My latest training has been as a BER ( Building Energy Ratings) Assessor, so that I can carry out BER Assessments on our social housing stock.

In terms of future career plans (with 3 young daughters under the age of three and a half), a house needing partial refurbishment, and the cold winds of recession chilling everyone) I see myself remaining in Cork City Council certainly for the next few years.

At present I am in charge of housing maintenance for almost 2,400 dwellings in the North East part of Cork City, having moved from the Energy Agency/Environment Directorate to spend some years in our Recreation, Amenity and Culture Directorate working on refurbishing and creating public parks, walkways etc. Career-wise, it would good for me to get some experience in some of the other Directorates, e.g. Roads or Planning or Drainage.