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Governance

The Irish Forum for Global Health is governed by an Executive Committee that meets four times per year. The Executive Committee members include David Weakliam (Chair), Diarmuid O’Donovan, Ruairi Brugha, Noel Murphy, Niall Roche, Diarmuid McClean, Nadine Ferris France, Eilish McAuliffe & Malcolm MacLachlan.  During 2011-2013 the Executive Committee will expand to have wider representation from its membership and include representatives from all sectors in the global health response.


From left to right: Niall Roche, Noel Murphy, Nadine Ferris France, Eilish McAuliffe, David Weakliam, Ruairi Brugha, Diarmuid O’Donovan
Executive Committee

David Weakliam, IFGH Executive Committee Current Chair & Member

  • Dr. David Weakliam MCommH, FFPHMI, MRCPI, MRCGP, HDip Quality in Healthcare, DTM&H, DCH, Dip Obs – Consultant in Public Health Medicine Health Service Executive (HSE)

David is a consultant in public health medicine with the Health Service Executive (HSE). He has worked in the area of international health since 1988, including 12 years working with Tearfund and other development agencies in Nepal, Liberia, Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo. Following his return to Ireland he worked as health adviser with Irish Aid, the government overseas aid programme from 2003 to 2007.

Diarmuid O’Donovan, IFGH Executive Committee Member

  • Dr. Diarmuid O’Donovan MD, MSc (Public Health), FFPHMI, DCH, DTM&H -Senior Lecturer in Social & Preventive Medicine / Director of Public Health (Health Service Executive, West)

Diarmuid is Senior Lecturer in Social & Preventive Medicine at NUI Galway and Director of Public Health in the Health Service Executive (HSE West, Galway). He is a Project Leader in the Health Promotion Research Centre.  He coordinates the Public Health content of the undergraduate medical curriculum and is director of the postgraduate Diploma/Masters programme in Health Services Research.  With colleagues in Bacteriology he coordinates the undergraduate course in Global Health and Development. He qualified in medicine in NUI Galway and in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.  He trained in General Practice and Public Health Medicine in England. He lived and worked in Africa for seven years.

Ruairi Brugha, IFGH Executive Committee Member

Professor Ruairí Brugha qualified as a doctor at UCD in 1980 and spent six years in Africa in the 1980s-90s as a clinician, public health specialist and researcher. He completed his public health medicine training in the UK and joined the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1996 as a lecturer and then senior lecturer.  He was co-editor of Health Policy and Planning from 1999 and Head of the Health Policy Unit from 2003.  In 2005, he joined the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland as the first full time Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine.  He conducts health policy and health systems research, mainly in Africa and Ireland.  See www.ghinet.org for outputs from a multi-country network researching the effects of global initiatives on recipient country health systems, which he co-coordinates, and see Pubmed for journal publications.

Noel Murphy, IFGH Executive Committee Member

Noel has been lecturing in biology in NUI Maynooth since March 2005.  Noel is Co-Chair of the Combat Diseases of Poverty Consortium. His undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees were in molecular genetics from the genetics department of Trinity College Dublin. He was awarded an EMBO long-term fellowship to undertake research on African trypansomes at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in 1984 and in 1987 he moved to the International Laboratory for Research in Animal Diseases, Nairobi, Kenya (now ILRI). Between 2001 and 2005 he was a contract lecturer in the Department of Genetics in Trinity College before moving to his current post at NUI Maynooth. The molecular parasitology group that Noel heads in the Institute of Immunology undertakes research on African trypanosomes. Current research is focused on elucidating the molecular processes by which these parasites communicate with each other to control their population size, proliferation and differentiation status.

Nadine Ferris France, IFGH Executive Committee Member

  • Nadine Ferris France - Operations Director, Irish Forum for Global Health

Nadine has over 20 years experience working internationally on global health issues. She worked as a Technical Officer with the World Health Organization on the issues of HIV and AIDS, violence against women, gender and reproductive health. Based in South Africa and Chiang Mai, Thailand, she co-founded Health and Development Networks (HDN), an international NGO focused on improving the quality of communication, information, advocacy and dialogue on HIV and TB-related issues. During this time, she has provided consultancy support on programme and strategy development to a wide range of players including various UN agencies and international and local NGOs.

Eilish McAuliffe, IFGH Executive Committee Member

Eilish McAuliffe is director of the Centre for Global Health at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. She has worked as a clinician, consultant and academic and lived in Ireland, UK, South Africa and Malawi, where she worked for Unicef and Irish Aid. Her research is on strengthening health systems in middle- and lowincome countries, with a particular focus on the human resource crisis and maternal healthcare.  In Ireland, she has also researched strategy and organizational change, and user involvement in health planning. Eilish has provided a wide range of consultancy support to governments, NGOs and professional healthcare bodies and has contributed to numerous strategy and policy documents in healthcare in both high- and low-income countries.

Malcolm MacLachlan, IFGH Executive Committee Member

  • Dr. Malcolm MacLachlan – Professor, Trinity College Dublin

Malcolm ‘Mac’ is with the Centre for Global Health and the School of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and is currently a visiting professor at the Centre for Rehabilitation Studies, Stellenbosch University, South Africa and at the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard University. Mac has worked as a clinician, consultant and academic, and has lived in Ireland, UK, Malawi and South Africa. His interests are in promoting inclusive global health – especially regarding disability and ethnicity – and humanitarian work psychology. He has worked with a broad range of government and civil society organizations and multilateral agencies (including WHO, Unicef, UNHCR, OECD and UNESCO). He is the director of the International Doctoral School for Global Health (Indigo).Malcolm MacLachlan, IFGH Executive Committee Member.

Diarmuid McClean, IFGH Executive Committee Member

  • Dr Diarmuid McClean - Development Specialist in Irish Aid’s Global Health Programme

Dr Diarmuid McClean is the Development Specialist overseeing and managing Irish Aid’s Global Health Programme out of the headquarters in Limerick. He is a specialist in public health and maternal and child health (MCH), with 20 years’ experience in the management, planning and delivery of health services. He has considerable consultancy experience, including team leadership experience, gained through his work in a number of African countries. His key specialist technical areas include: global health partnerships, health planning and management; district health services management; HIV/AIDS and TB prevention, care and support; project identification, design and evaluation; community development and process-orientated planning. Diarmuid currently deals with Irish Aid’s international health programme, covering engagement with multi-lateral systems, international partnerships, non-governmental organisations and in-country bilateral programmes in several African countries. A substantial part of this has included professional development of embassy-level technical staff and in-country contribution to the capacity development of partner organisations. Diarmuid has consulted in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Lesotho, Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

Niall Roche, IFGH Executive Committee Member

  • Niall Roche - B.Ss. (Environmental Health), M.HSc (Public Health and Health Promotion). Consultant Environmental Health/WASH specialist and Adjunct Lecturer in Global Health, Trinity College Dublin

Niall is an Environmental Health Officer by background and has worked in the global health for over 20 years with a focus on Environmental Health (mostly Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) in humanitarian to development contexts. He has lived in Thailand, Cambodia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Southern Sudan while working with the NGOs Concern Worldwide and MSF (Belgium). He currently works as an independent consultant to clients such as NGOs, Irish Aid and UN agencies plus fills a number of part-time lecturing roles at Trinity College Dubin, University College Dublin, RCSI, Dtalk and the University of Copenhagen.

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