“I am delighted to welcome our delegates and partners from across the island of Ireland, and from all around the world, to our annual Health and Education International Research Conference (#THEConf) at the School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College. 

I greatly value the time you have taken to come to our School.  This conference is a space to share your valuable contributions, insights, and discussions with fellow researchers, educators and those who are shaping health services both on this island and internationally. I hope that this sharing of ground-breaking research will spark new conversations and potential future partnerships.  

A core value and mission of the Trinity College School of Nursing and Midwifery is the translation of world class research into real life impact on people’s experiences of birth, death, health, illness and disability.  Over the years this conference has proven instrumental in developing international connections and networks that have transformed and improved health and wellbeing across the lifespan.

I hope your time in Trinity and Dublin will be both academically stimulating and enjoyable.

Thank you for being here with us today.

Damien

Bernard Gloster has been Chief Executive Officer of the HSE since March 2023. He has worked in health and social services for almost 36 years. He rejoined the HSE from the state Child and Family Agency Tusla where he served as Chief Executive Officer from September 2019. Prior to that he held several senior management positions within the HSE including Chief Officer of HSE Mid-West Community Healthcare, and he worked in and managed in both community and acute hospital operations. He is a social care worker by profession, holds an MBA from Oxford Brookes University and an MSc in Management Practice from UCC. In 2024 he was awarded the inaugural Alumni Award 
of the Munster Technological University. 

Eileen Whelan is the Regional Director of Nursing and Midwifery in the Dublin and Midlands Health Region. Prior to her appointment Eileen was the Chief Director of Nursing and Midwifery in the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group (2015- 2024). Eileen led on the development and implementation of strategic nursing and midwifery priorities and had an executive leadership role in the development and implementation of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group Strategic Plan. During her tenure as Chief Director of Nursing and Midwifery she was concurrently appointed interim Director for Quality and Patient Safety (2015 – 2020) where she had a core role in the implementation of Health Information and Quality Authority recommendations within services in the Hospital Group. During the COVID-19 health emergency, she led on many elements of the emergency response. This included having a national and local leadership role in Critical Care escalation, the National Vaccination Programme, and led the development of the Citywest Vaccination Centre (2020 -2022). From June 2022 to November 2023 Eileen was appointed to the interim role of National Director of the COVID-19 Vaccination Test and Contact Tracing Programmes. Eileen has demonstrated her commitment to service improvement during her time working in the Special Delivery Unit and previously in the North East where she led on the Transformation and reconfiguration agenda, which included the development of new services.

Throughout her professional career, Eileen has demonstrated her passion for delivering quality and safe services to patients and service users, and to improving the work environment for the staff who deliver the care. Eileen is strongly supportive of the implementation of Sláintecare and was a member of the Regional Health Advisory Group. She is also an advocate for the implementation of safer staffing across services and has led on quality improvement initiatives within the profession and across the wider health sector.

Eileen is committed to education and ongoing professional development for all staff and has supported her own professional practice with specialist post graduate education and a Masters in Business Administration, UCD. She is an Adjunct Professor of the School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin.  Eileen received the award of fellowship of the Scottish Patient Safety Programme, is a fellow of the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery RCSI and is a Florence Nightingale Leadership Scholar.

Maria was appointed Chief Nursing Officer for the Department of Health for Northern Ireland in March 2022. 

Maria previously worked across a range of acute and community settings within Health and Social care in England and Scotland and has gained extensive leadership, management and strategic experience.  

As Northern Ireland’s Chief Nursing Officer, Maria leads the nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals’ contribution to the development and implementation of health and social care policy in NI.  Her team provides advice on adult and children's acute services, mental health, elderly care, learning and physical disabilities, public health, community health, primary care, midwifery, and international issues.  Maria also carries responsibility for the development of nursing and midwifery training and education arrangements alongside Health & Social Care Trusts and Higher Education Institutions in the region. 

Her vision for the future of the Nursing & Midwifery professions in Northern Ireland was launched in May 2023, and significant work is underway to implement it in coming months. 

Rachel Kenna is the (CNO) for Ireland and was appointed to the post in June 2020. Rachel was formerly a Deputy Chief Nursing Officer leading on nursing and midwifery policy for patient systems, safety, and governance.  She is a Registered Children’s and General Nurse (RCN/RGN) and has extensive clinical and managerial experience, spanning 30 years in Ireland and the UK across a wide variety of clinical areas. Prior to her roles in the Department of Health, Rachel was Director of Nursing in Ireland’s largest Children’s teaching Hospital with national responsibility for the provision of quaternary and tertiary healthcare services. 

The Chief Nursing Officer role is an important strategic leadership and influencing role providing professional policy direction and evidence-based expert advice for Government on nursing, midwifery, and general health policy development. Rachel has a real interest in health policy and brings a knowledgeable clinical practice, patient, system and governance perspective to its development and implementation. The development of flexible nursing and midwifery policy to ensure the professions are in the best position to meet population need is a particular focus for Rachel and includes a real passion about nurturing the next generation of healthcare leaders.   

As an Assistant Secretary in the Department of Health, the CNO in addition to Nursing and Midwifery policy has a wide health policy portfolio. These include professional regulation oversight (medical council, CORU and NMBI) , strategic workforce planning across the health service, population health screening and the National Patient Safety Office.  

Rachel ‘s interest in global health policy includes  active membership  of the WHO European region Government Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officers Hub contributing to strengthening the nursing and midwifery workforce to improve health outcomes.  

She is educated in a wide range of areas to support her  in her role and holds a MSc in Child Protection and Welfare and a BSc in Nursing Management. Rachel’s other educational qualifications includes a Higher Diploma in Professional Practice, Critical Care Nursing, Leadership and Quality in Healthcare,  a Diploma in Human Rights and Equality and a Professional Diploma in Governance. Rachel is also a Florence Nightingale Leadership graduate.

Professor Jonathan Drennan is Professor of Nursing at the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems, University College Dublin. He previously held professorships at University College Cork and the University of Southampton.  

Professor Drennan is registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland in the general, psychiatric, learning disability and tutors’ divisions of the Register.

Professor Drennan has experience of a wide-range of research areas including clinical research, research into higher education, evaluation of health service initiatives, older persons’ research, psychometrics and research methods and health workforce research. He has completed a number of projects at national and European levels and has received competitive funding from a wide variety of sources.  

He presented to and advised the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Safe Staffing Advisory Committees on staffing in medical and surgical wards and accident and emergency departments in the UK. This was part of the development process of the NICE guidelines on safe staffing.

Professor Drennan is currently a member of the Department of Health taskforce developing frameworks for safe nurse staffing and skill mix in the healthcare sector. He is leading a Health Research Board and Department of Health-funded study on safe nurse staffing across medical, surgical, emergency, older persons, and community settings in Ireland.

Additionally, Professor Drennan was appointed by the previous Minister for Health,Stephen Donnelly to the Expert Review Body on Nursing and Midwifery and is one of the authors of its report.

Originally from Ireland, Vivien completed her general nurse training in 1991 and studied for a Masters of Community Health in 1997 in the School of Tropical Medicine, University of Liverpool.

Her first posting abroad was in 1992 in Cambodia, and since then she has continued her humanitarian work with the International Committee of the Red Cross/Irish Red Cross across 20 countries, mainly conflict affected. She has worked in areas of Primary Health Care, Weapon Wounded and First Aid and Pre Hospital Care. She currently specializes in Health Care in Detention.

She was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal in 2019 in recognition of her work in prisons in Iraq following the conflict in Mosul. She was also awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 2020 and an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy by Dublin City University in 2021.

She is committed to the work of the Red Cross and advocating for equivalence of health care for all, including detainees.

She is currently based in Yemen working on Primary Health Care and Health in Detention Projects.

 Brian O’Connell is Professor of Restorative Dentistry in the School of Dental Science and was elected Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2021.

He was Dean of Dental Affairs and Head of School from 2015-2021, where he had a particular interest in the development of oral health policy in Ireland and internationally.

He is currently President of the Association for Dental Education in Europe and Past President of the International Association for Dental Research and a member of the Platform for Better Oral Health in Europe. Professor O’Connell leads the oral health strand of the Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

Prof Damien Brennan was elected to the role of Head of School by the School of Nursing and Midwifery in November 2024.

Prior to joining Trinity College Dublin, Damien practiced as a Registered Psychiatric Nurse until 1998 and as a Registered Nurse Tutor until 2002. He first registered on the Psychiatric Nursing register in 1992 and gained extensive experience working across a range of mental health and social care services both within Ireland and in developing countries.

Damien successfully completed a Graduate Diploma in Development Studies in 1995; a Masters in Equality Studies from University College Dublin in 1997; and a Masters in Education from Trinity College Dublin in 2000. He was conferred with an Honorary Masters in Arts (J.O.) in 2006 and completed a PhD in 2007 at Trinity College Dublin (Department of Sociology).

Damien’s research and teaching experience spans two disciplines: Nursing and Sociology. He has made a significant contribution to unpacking Irelands problematic past practices of institutional confinement. Damien’s research agenda is forward facing, specifically addressing care capacity within communities and families within contemporary post-institutional society.

As Head of School, Damien leads the nursing and midwifery and allied health sciences team in providing leadership across multi-professional and multidisciplinary healthcare research, education and practice at local, national and international levels. This entails the leadership of a School academic and professional staff body of in excess of 140, and a student body of 1,700 spanning Undergraduate to PhD level.

Under his leadership, the School enjoys strong partnerships with associated health service providers. He is committed to leading the School in further developing structures for collaboration with partners on all stages of strategies for excellence in healthcare.

Damien is both an optimist and a pragmatist, with a leadership approach that is innovative, consultative and inclusive. He is committed to competency and quality in all endeavours. A core focus of Damien’s leadership of the School of Nursing and Midwifery is to ensure that all school activities positively impact on people’s experiences of birth, death, health, illness and disability.

Mary Renfrew is Professor Emerita at the University of Dundee, Scotland. A health researcher and midwife, Mary has conducted research in midwifery, maternal and newborn care and in infant feeding and nutrition for more than 40 years, and her work has helped to shape policy, practice, and education nationally and internationally. She has advised government departments and global organisations and has been invited to present her work in more than 25 countries. She was Principal Investigator for the groundbreaking global Lancet Series on Midwifery, and has been co-editor of the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group, Chair of the WHO Strategic Group on Maternal and Newborn Health, and Board member and Trustee for Unicef UK. She was Lead Adviser to the UK Nursing and Midwifery Council for the radical new regulatory standards for midwives and member of the Best Start Implementation Board for the Scottish Government. Most recently, she led the Independent Report on midwifery and wider maternity services for Northern Ireland. Her contribution to health science has been recognised in her election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2014 and Fellow of Academy of Medical Sciences in 2022. She was awarded OBE in 2022 for services to midwifery, and awarded Honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of Dundee in 2025.

Bluesky:@maryrenfrew.bsky.social

ORCID: 0000-0003-2905-403X

Dr Tim Holt, PhD FRCGP FRCP, is an academic general practitioner based in the UK. Through research initially with Warwick and then with Oxford University he has developed an interest in how we identify risk of disease using the data recorded in primary care. Risk of fracture in people with intellectual disability has become a central theme in recent years and the work has included a large published incidence study, a recently completed health economic analysis, and ongoing studies of risk profiles and outcomes of fracture in this vulnerable and often neglected group. In his spare time he has a private natural history museum and is a keen astrophotographer.

https://hexi.ox.ac.uk/atrial-fibrillation/dr-tim-holt

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tim-Holt

Michael Foley is the Manager for Trinity’s Civic Engagement for Societal Impact unit, supporting relationships between the university and its community, NGO and public sector partners. This is with a view to addressing societal issues, promoting democratic values and fostering positive social change. At its heart, this work is about Trinity being a 'good neighbour' and the kind of institution that cares about the big challenges of our uncertain times. 

Prior to this role, Michael was the Programme Manager for Trinity PPI Ignite Office. Based in Trinity's School of Nursing and Midwifery but working across the whole campus, PPI Ignite supports and promotes PPI (Public & Patient Involvement) in health-related research. Michael worked with people with long-term conditions, disabilities, illnesses or differing identities to play a partnership role with researchers, bringing their lived experience to bear on the research cycle. 

Michael brings a wealth of experience from the nonprofit sector, having spent a decade as a senior manager at Age & Opportunity, an Irish NGO dedicated to arts, sports, and community education programs for older adults. Prior to that, he worked in Ireland’s National Disability Authority (NDA), in information, technical and dissemination roles. He has also worked freelance in copywriting, editing, broadcasting, evaluation and facilitation.