Brendan O'Donoghue | |
---|---|
Born | 19 September 1942 |
Died | 4 September 2019 76) | (aged
Nationality | Irish |
Occupation | senior civil servant |
Brendan O'Donoghue (19 September 1942 - 4 September 2019) was an Irish civil servant who served as secretary general of Department of the Environment and Director of the National Library of Ireland.
O'Donoghue was appointed as secretary general of Department of the Environment at the age of 48. In 1997, he took up the post of director of the National Library of Ireland until 2003. While at the Library, he oversaw the establishment of the National Photographic Archive which opened in 1998 in Temple Bar. From 1997 to 2001, he served as chair of the Irish Architectural Archive, and chaired the editorial committee of the Royal Irish Academy's Dictionary of Irish Biography . [1]
Before his time as a Director of the National Library Association, O'Donoghue worked as a civil servant in the “Department of Local Government in 1963 as an administrative officer”. He served in the Department of Local Government for three years before moving to the Department of Finance. He only worked a short two year post in this department from 1966 till 1968, before transferring back to the Department of Local Government, which was later renamed the Department of the Environment. [1]
In 1983, fifteen years after he rejoined this department, O'Donoghue was appointed the position of assistant secretary and moved up to the position of secretary general in 1990. [2] As secretary general passed acts such as the Water Pollution Act 1990, the Waste Management Act 1996 and the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992, with the latter leading to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. [1] O'Donoghue encouraged the transfer of "environmental directives of the European Communities into Irish law" and created legislation that meant the responsibility of planning decisions were to be in the hands of "an expert statutory board" rather than the hands of politicians. [2] He spent over 20 years collecting information about the County Surveyors system in Ireland and the people behind it. In 2008, his book The Irish county surveyors 1834-1944 was published and contained all of the information around "the origins and development of the system; and the work of the county surveyors concerning road construction and maintenance, public buildings and other public works, and private practice in architecture and engineering". [3] O'Donoghue also wrote a number of scholarly texts about engineering, including In Search of Fame and Fortune: The Leahy Family of Engineers and a biography about Sir Henry Augustus Robinson titled Activities Wise and Otherwise: The Career of Sir Henry Augustus Robinson, 1898-1922. [1]
Conservation in the Republic of Ireland is overseen by a number of statutory and non-governmental agencies, including those with responsibility for conservation of the built environment and conservation of the natural environment in Ireland. Conservation has sometimes been a contentious issue, with debates impacting its progress since the 1960s. Concrete initiatives are sometimes driven by European Union (EU) heritage protection and environmental policies, including EU environmental law, which – as a member – the Irish government is obliged to adopt and implement.
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, Cadw in Wales, and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency in Northern Ireland. The classification schemes differ between England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The term has also been used in the Republic of Ireland, where buildings are protected under the Planning and Development Act 2000, although the statutory term in Ireland is "protected structure".
The Scottish Government is the executive arm of the devolved government of Scotland. It was formed in 1999 as the Scottish Executive following the 1997 referendum on Scottish devolution. Its areas for responsibility of decision making and domestic policy in the country include the economy, education, healthcare, justice and the legal system, rural affairs, housing, the crown estate, the environment, the fire service, equal opportunities, the transportation network, and tax, amongst others.
The Welsh Government is the executive arm of the devolved government of Wales. The government consists of cabinet secretaries and ministers. It is led by the first minister, usually the leader of the largest party in the Senedd, who selects ministers with the approval of the Senedd. The government is responsible for tabling policy in devolved areas for consideration by the Senedd and implementing policy that has been approved by it.
The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and enhancement of the environment in England.
The Office of Public Works (OPW) is a major Irish Government agency, which manages most of the Irish State's property portfolio, including hundreds of owned and rented Government offices and police properties, oversees National Monuments and directly manages some heritage properties, and is the lead State engineering agency, with a special focus on flood risk management. It lies within the remit of the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, with functions largely delegated to a Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform with special responsibility for the Office. The OPW has a central role in driving the Government's property asset management reform process, both in respect of its own portfolio and that of the wider public service. The agency was initially known as Board of Works, a title inherited from a preceding body, and this term is still sometimes encountered.
The functions of local government in the Republic of Ireland are mostly exercised by thirty-one local authorities, termed County, City, or City and County Councils. The principal decision-making body in each of the thirty-one local authorities is composed of the members of the council, elected by universal franchise in local elections every five years from multi-seat local electoral areas using the single transferable vote. Many of the authorities' statutory functions are, however, the responsibility of ministerially appointed career officials termed Chief executives. The competencies of the city and county councils include planning, transport infrastructure, sanitary services, public safety and the provision of public libraries. Each local authority sends representatives to one of three Regional Assemblies.
Sir Peter James Housden is a former public official who worked in local and central government. He served as Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government from June 2010 to June 2015. He was previously Permanent Secretary of the Department for Communities and Local Government.
The New South Wales Government Architect, an appointed officer of the Government of New South Wales, serves as the General Manager of the Government Architect's Office (GAO), a multi-disciplinary consultancy operating on commercial principles providing architecture, design, and engineering services, that is an agency of the government within NSW Public Works.
A county surveyor is a public official in the United Kingdom and the United States. County surveyors also existed in Ireland between 1834 and 1944.
The Birthday Honours 2006 for the Commonwealth realms were announced on 17 June 2006, to celebrate the Queen's Birthday of 2006.
Sir Henry Augustus Robinson, 1st Baronet, was an Irish civil servant.
The Birthday Honours 2007 for the Commonwealth realms were announced on 17 June 2007, to celebrate the Queen's Birthday of 2007.
New Year Honours were granted in the United Kingdom and New Zealand at the start of 2005. Among these in the UK were knighthoods awarded to Mike Tomlinson, the educationalist; Derek Wanless, who led a review of the National Health Service; and Brian Harrison, editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. The former athlete Kelly Holmes was made a Dame. The television presenter Alan Whicker was awarded a CBE.
The Birthday Honours 2005 for the Commonwealth realms were announced on 11 June 2005 to celebrate the Queen's Birthday of 2005. The recipients of honours are displayed here as they were styled before their new honour, and arranged first by the country whose ministers advised the Queen on the appointments, then by honour, with classes and then divisions as appropriate.
The Diamond Jubilee Honours for the British Empire were announced on 22 June 1897 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria on 20 June 1897.
John H. Brett (1835–1920) was an Irish architect, builder, and county surveyor for counties Limerick, Kildare and Antrim, active in late-nineteenth to early twentieth-century Ireland. He was notable in being a prolific designer of utilitarian structures as a county surveyor, with many practical schemes proposed. His designs, however, were often flamboyant in practicing a Ruskinian Gothic blend of Victoian Italianate and Venetian Renaissance styles, heavily influenced by the writer John Ruskin (1819–1900).
The 1993 Queen's Birthday honours were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as part of the Queen's birthday celebrations and were announced on 11 June 1993 for the United Kingdom, the Bahamas, Solomon Islands, Saint Lucia, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, and New Zealand and the Cook Islands. The list for Australia was announced separately on 14 June.
The Lansdowne Bridge is a heritage-listed road bridge that carries the northbound carriageway of the Hume Highway across Prospect Creek between Lansvale and Lansdowne. Situated in southwestern Sydney it is located on the boundary of the Fairfield and Canterbury-Bankstown local government areas. The bridge was named in honour of Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780–1863), an Irish Whig politician of the British Parliament and associate of the NSW Governor of the day, Sir Richard Bourke.
The 1920 Birthday Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were made to celebrate the official birthday of The King, and were published in The London Gazette on 4 June 1920.