Appointments/Re-appointments to the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council - 20 March 2025

Following a Public Jobs campaign, the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has appointed/re-appointed the following members to the Board of Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council.

Susan Downey is board director of Addison’s-Pituitary Ireland CLG.

She is an experienced director with 25 years of experience in senior roles in regulated organisations - formerly Chief HR Officer, Miller Insurance Services LLP (800 employees), Head of HR, Axa Life Invest and HR Director, Consumer Healthcare, GlaxoSmithKline (Ireland) Ltd.

With a qualification in company direction from the Institute of Directors, she has strong regulatory and compliance expertise and currently serves as board secretary to 3 organisations.

She is also an active Community First Responder and, as a trustee of Greystones Community First Responders, working with the National Ambulance Service in providing pre-hospital emergency care in the community.

Ms Susan Downey is appointed with effect from 26 February 2025 until 25 February 2029.

Gabriel Beecham is an Irish-trained consultant anaesthesiologist (St Mary’s Hospital, London) with experience in governance, education, and strategic development of trauma and pre-hospital emergency care systems in Ireland.

As a registered medical practitioner with significant expertise in pre-hospital emergency care, he has worked extensively in trauma systems, from designing care pathways to improving pre-hospital-to-hospital integration. He brings over a decade of medical practice, primarily in anaesthesiology with a special interest in intensive care medicine, but also formal credentials in emergency medicine.

His experience includes education within a PHECC-registered organisation and contributing to the development of national training pathways for critical care retrieval and transfer services.

Dr Gabriel Beecham is appointed with effect from 26 February 2025 until 25 February 2029.

Daragh Mathews is an emergency medicine doctor with a strong commitment to prehospital care.

He has a keen interest in the structured governance of prehospital care. He educates across the scope of prehospital care from community first responders to critical care paramedics and leads the Alternative Prehospital Pathway Project in CUH. He currently chairs regular national case discussion meetings for prehospital doctors, creating a forum for the exchange of knowledge and best practices. He also serves on a Community Emergency Medicine Special Interest Group in the UK.

He has actively contributed to the development of prehospital care education and has also led the Alternative Prehospital Pathway Project in Cork, an initiative that explores innovative ways to improve the management of patients in the community.

Dr Daragh Mathews is appointed with effect from 26 February 2025 until 25 February 2029.

Mary O’Neill is Course Director on the B. Sc. Paramedic Studies (Practitioner Entry) University of Limerick. She has a wealth of experience in multidisciplinary team collaboration, and a strong academic and clinical background in both nursing/midwifery and paramedic education. She has an academic background including an MSc in Midwifery with modules in quality and safety in healthcare, leadership and management, and research methodology and is registered on the divisions of Nurse and Midwife with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI).

She has worked for the last seven years as a Clinical Tutor and Course Director on the BSc. Paramedic Studies in the School of Medicine, University of Limerick.

She is a member of the PHECC quality and safety committee.

Ms Mary O’Neill is appointed with effect from 26 February 2025 until 25 February 2029.

Staff Development Facilitator – Trauma Resuscitation, Emergency Department, Mater Misericordiae University Hospital (MMUH).

Pauric Kane is a registered nurse with over nine years of experience in emergency nursing, having held clinical, managerial and educational roles within busy emergency departments in the acute hospital setting.

In his current role as a Nurse educator, Pauric leads numerous training and education programs for healthcare professionals at various levels within the emergency environment. He facilitates personal and professional development of staff so that they may gain the knowledge and skills necessary to assess undifferentiated and undiagnosed patients, ensuring the provision high quality care to both the acutely ill and injured. As an advanced life support instructor and facilitator of frequent in-situ clinical simulation, his commitment to professional development helps ensure that staff are well-equipped with the latest knowledge and skills to excel in the roles.

With a strong commitment to pre-hospital emergency care, Pauric has volunteered with the Irish Red Cross for over two decades. He is also a Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC) Registered Emergency Medical Technician and PHECC Instructor, contributing to the advancement of pre-hospital emergency care and education.

Mr Pauric Kane is appointed with effect from 26 February 2025 until 25 February 2029.

Dr Tomás Barry is a General Practitioner & Associate Professor at University College Dublin, School of Medicine.

He worked as a GP partner at UCD’s Coombe Family Practice and provided voluntary prehospital emergency care in collaboration with Dublin Fire Brigade, the National Ambulance Service and the charity ‘Critical’. He previously acted as Course Director for the National Advanced Paramedic Training Programme and has led UCD’s General Practice continuing medical education programmes in emergency care.

Dr Barry’s research interest is at the interface of general practice and community emergency/unscheduled care. He previously led the research component of the national ‘MERIT’ (Medial Emergency Responders Integration and Training) project which provided training and equipment for GPs to manage community emergencies and facilitated integration with the statutory ambulance services.

He was awarded the 2019 European Resuscitation Council, Petter Steen Young Investigator Award for his doctoral work on cardiac arrest community first response systems. He was further awarded a Health Research Board, Clinician Scientist Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2020, and an Emerging Clinician Scientist Award in 2024. To date his research has been funded by the Health Research Board, Wellcome Trust and the Irish College of General Practitioners.

Dr Barry was appointed by the Minister for Health to the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC) in 2021 and served as the chair of the PHECC Medical Advisory Committee.

He is currently Secretary of the Association of University Departments of General Practice in Ireland (AUDGPI) Executive and formerly was Mid-Career Representative. He is a member of the Cochrane Collaboration and serves on the Editorial Board for ‘Resuscitation Plus’.

Dr Tomás Barry is reappointed with effect from 15 February 2025 until 14 February 2029.