Appointments and Reappointments to the Social Workers Registration Board - 14 September 2022

The Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has appointed the following members to the Social Workers Registration Board, on their election by the registrants of the designated profession, with effect from 31 August 2022 to 4 August 2026.

Ms Áine Davin

Aine has considerable experience in Social Work having worked in the profession for over twenty-three years. She took an indirect path into the profession, completing a Bachelor of Business and Legal Studies in University College Dublin (U.C.D.) in 1995, a Diploma in Social Policy in 1997 and a Masters in Social Work in 1999 again in U.C.D. Aine started her social work career in Roscommon in 1999 working with the then HSE in Children and Families. In 2010 Aine joined the Social Work Primary Care Team in the Midlands where she worked for five years before taking up a Social Work Team Leader position in 2015 in Psychiatry of Later Life where she is currently working. Being part of different teams, working in different social work settings provided Aine with opportunities for experiential learning and the building up of skills and knowledge Aine has been involved in the local Forsa branch and was also actively involved in the Professional Committee for Social Work in Forsa which she also chaired for two years.

Ms Maria McGloughlin

Maria McGloughlin has been a registered social worker since 2007 having completed her Masters in Social Work in Trinity College, Dublin. Currently working in Children’s Services Regulation within TUSLA, she has worked as Child Protection Social Worker, and Social Work Team Leader with TUSLA since 2010. She has been active within the Irish Association of Social Workers (IASW) since 2012 and previously was chair of the Special Interest Group for Children and Families and was also elected to the Board of IASW in 2018. In her current role, Maria focuses on ensuring children and young people are provided with high quality child centred services within regulated children’s services. She also has overall responsibility for the Child Safeguarding Statement Compliance Unit.

The Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly with the consent of the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, has reappointed the following member to the Social Workers Registration Board from 31 August to 4 August 2026.

Dr Colm O’Doherty

Dr. Colm O’Doherty is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Athlone Institute of Technology. He began his professional career as a Social Worker in Coventry and developed a family support service in the inner city there. After leaving Coventry Social Services he worked as a Social Worker in West Wales and Cork City and County where he continued his involvement in family support and community development practice. After eighteen years of front line practice in social work, family support and community development he took on a pivotal role in community and social work education at University College Cork. He left UCC in 1998 and established a social science department at the Institute of Technology Tralee (now the Munster Technological University). His PhD, completed in 2004, critically examined the national deployment of family support services. He is the author of A New Agenda for Family Support –Providing Services that Create Social Capital (2007) and co-editor (with Dr. Ashling Jackson) of Community Development in Ireland –Theory, Policy and Practice (2012) and Learning on the Job-Parenting in Modern Ireland (2015). He is a member of the Parenting Network.

The Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has reappointed the following member to the Social Workers Registration Board with effect from 31 August 2022 to 4 August 2026.

Pat Bennett

Pat Bennett is recently retired from his post as Chief Officer in Midlands Louth Meath Community Health Care Organisation HSE. He was previously the Director of Project Lifecourse in NUIG. Pat also served as Chief Executive of the Adoption Authority of Ireland. Pat previously worked as Chief Executive of the Family Support Agency. Pat was educated at St. Mary’s C.B.S. in Portlaoise. He holds a Dip. in Hospital and Health Services Management from the Health Management Institute and a Masters in Social Science from UCC.