Appointments to the Speech and Language Therapists Registration Board
From Department of Health
Published on
Last updated on
From Department of Health
Published on
Last updated on
Dr Catherine O’Neill
Following a long career in healthcare education and research in the third level sector (1993- 2015), Dr O Neill currently works as a research and educational consultant. Previously, she held a Senior lecturer’s post in the School of Postgraduate Studies, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Bahrain, and Dublin as Director of the MSc Nursing and Midwifery programme. Her nursing practice was in the community as a relief Public Health Nurse.
Catherine’s specialist areas of interest are healthcare philosophy and sociology with a particular emphasis on ethics; topics she taught at postgraduate and undergraduate levels to nurses, and other healthcare disciplines, including medical doctors, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and radiologists.
Her PhD focused on ethical decision making in the care of older people in hospitals. She was an active member of the research consortium which developed an Ethical Framework for End-of-Life Care (2010), an approach to care which has been adopted by hospitals and long-term care facilities nationwide.
Catherine currently represents the interest of the general public on the Speech and Language Therapists Registration Board under the auspices of CORU (2017- present) and was a member of the RCSI Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery Board, Dublin (2015- 2019). She also has served on various advisory committees to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI) and was actively involved in the national review of the Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics for Nurses and Midwives in Ireland (2014).
Recent projects and publications have included the updating of the Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics for Nurses and Midwives (2020), an evaluation of the CLIMB® programme in Ireland (2019), and a review of the European Code of Conduct and Ethics for European Nurses with recommendations (2017).
Dr Bernard Hegarty
Dr Hegarty has twenty-one years’ experience of managing food law enforcement in the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI). He has been Director of Enforcement Policy at the authority since 2009 where he has been a member of the Senior Leadership Team, responsible for overall management of FSAI service contracts with State Agencies for enforcement of food law in Ireland.
Bernard had previously served as Contracts Manager with the FSAI from 2000 where he had, inter alia, represented Ireland at European Commission and Council of Europe meetings on food legislation. This included serving for two years as Chair of the Council of Europe Expert Committee on Food Contact Materials. He also served as Co-Chair of the European Council Working Group that developed framework legislation on food contact materials during Ireland’s EU Presidency in 2004.
Prior to joining the FSAI, he had worked as a Test Manager and Senior Scientist at Water Research Centre (WRC) in the UK, as a Research Chemist at BP in the UK and as Research Associate at the University of New Mexico (USA). He was awarded his doctorate in Chemistry by UCD and holds an MA in Public Management.