Champion of Group Water Schemes receives prestigious Plunkett Award
THE outstanding lifelong contribution to the Irish co-operative movement by Mayo man Brendan O’Mahony (a former chair and current director for over two decades in the National Federation of Group Water Schemes) has been recognised nationally with the co-operative industry’s highest national honour - the Plunkett Award for Co-operative Endeavour.
Mr. O’Mahony, from Cross, attended the ceremony at ICOS headquarters in Dublin last night with his daughter Cathriona, son Fergal, daughter-in-law Georgina and grandchildren Niamh and Conor.
Presenting the Plunkett Award, ICOS president Jerry Long said: “Brendan O’Mahony has made a truly outstanding contribution, on a local and a national level, working selflessly to improve the lives of everyday people through the establishment, growth and development of Group Water Schemes and a lifelong commitment to rural communities and co-operative enterprise.
“While investment in the provision of clean and sustainable water has proven controversial in Ireland over recent years, there has been huge and silent movement of over 80,000 rural dwellers, often forgotten by the authorities, who were getting on with their business, running their own Group water Schemes, serving their rural communities and embracing all that is good in the co-operative movement.”
Brendan O’Mahony, he said, has made an extraordinary contribution over his lifelong career to date, demonstrating a forthright and dynamic capability to energise change and development for the greater good of rural communities throughout Ireland. “In doing so, he has upheld the vision and aims of co-operation as a key driver of community and economic progress, locally, regionally and nationally across Ireland.”
Brendan O’Mahony has served on the board of the National Federation of Group Water Schemes (NFGWS) since it was established in February 1997, almost 23 years ago. The federation has been a member of ICOS since it formed a co-operative in 1999.
The organisation is the representative body for the group water scheme sector, providing advice and information, training as well as promoting best practice in GWS governance using the co-operative structure.
The organisation had grown under Brendan’s stewardship, with now over 400 group water scheme affiliate members in 2017, the vast majority of which are co-operative entities themselves.
Mr. O’Mahony was one of the founding members of the Cross GWS, now Cross GWS Co-Operative Society Limited, of which he is an active member and shareholder. He acted as secretary of the original GWS from when it was established in the mid '70s and actively encouraged the scheme to form a co-operative in 2007.
Mr. O’Mahony has also been an active member of the IFA for many years and has served in five different executive positions since 1993, including as county secretary and chairperson to Mayo IFA, and also on the IFA National Council.
He continues to be a member of the IFA and is an active beef and sheep farmer and is still involved in a number of local agricultural co-operatives.
During his tenure in these positions with the IFA, he was a member of a large number of committees and stakeholder groups representing the interests of Irish farmers particularly with a focus on the challenges faced by farmers in the west of Ireland.
The Plunkett Award - chosen from a shortlist of distinguished nominees - is presented to just one individual each year who is regarded as having made an outstanding lifelong contribution to the co-operative movement in Ireland.