RIGHT (l to r): John Gleeson, Ken Sauvage and Dudley Higgins, all members of the new board of directors at the Nagle Centre, Waterford. Photo: John Power

The Nagle Centre was set up by the Presentation Sisters in 1998 to help bridge the digital divide. Since then it has gone from strength to strength and is currently providing courses for approximately 300 people each year.

The courses are validated either by The Irish Computer Society, established in 1967 as the national body for information and communication technology for professionals; or by the Further Education and Training Awards Council (FETAC), the national awarding body for further education and training in Ireland.

Earlier this month, the Nagle Centre re-located from the Edmund Rice International Heritage Centre on Barrack Street in Waterford City to new premises at the Millennium Building, Church Road, Lisduggan, where it will provide expanded people-centred information technology education for children and adults.

The members of the new board will provide guidance for the future direction and development of the Nagle Centre. They re as follows:

• Pat O’Neill, businessman, former managing director of Glanbia and current Chairman of Nature’s Best;
• Dr Tom O’Toole, Head of the School of Business at Waterford Institute of Technology;
• Maria Lindell, Waterford Area Partnership where she is co-ordinator of  community-based youth initiatives;
• John Gleeson, of Radius Technology, Waterford;
• Sr Jo McCarthy, who spent 20 years teaching in shanty towns in Peru and in remote rural areas in Ecuador;
• Ken Sauvage, Treo Portlairge, a community-based project set up to help rehabilitate people who have been in trouble with the law;
  
• Dudley Higgins, a businessman who set up Aran Kitchens and who has served on the boards of several Waterford schools;
• Brother Philip Ryan, teacher and former manager and assistant chief executive of the Edmund Rice International Heritage Centre, Waterford.
• Sr Josephine Deegan, who was instrumental in the establishment of the Nagle Centre, and former teacher.
• Eileen O’Brien, a nurse who is currently Director of the Churchfield Community Trust in Cork, a project set up to help young men with addictions who have been released from prison;
• Maura Cooney, who has been on the management team of the Nagle Centre for several years, a past pupil of the centre and a current course tutor.

“We warmly welcome the new directors to the board of the Nagle Centre,” said Sr Josephine Deegan, Director of the Nagle Centre:

"We are very pleased that people who have had diverse and distinguished records of achievement and experience are prepared to help us progress the work of the Nagle Centre.

“The future has never looked more exciting for the Centre and we believe it is timely that we are making this move as people with good computer and information technology skills will be in a better position to meet the current challenges in an economic recession where jobs are under threat or being lost.”

Bro Philip Ryan, Chairman of the Nagle Centre, added:

“We would like to publicly thank our new directors for their generosity in giving their time and the benefit of their vast experience to the work of the Nagle Centre. We look forward to working closely with them in helping us achieve our goal of bridging the digital divide.” (Source: Nano Nagle Centre)