The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD today announced the new membership of the National Competitiveness Council (NCC) including the appointment of Dr Don Thornhill as Chairperson. The additional members are: Martin Shanahan, CE, Forfás; Liam Casey, PCH; Prof. Peter Clinch, VP Innovation in UCD; Shay Cody, ICTU; Clare Dunne, DJEI; Isolde Goggin, Chairperson, Competition Authority; John Herlihy, Google; Danny McCoy, IBEC; Sean Murphy, CCI; Sean O’Driscoll, Glen Dimplex; Louise Phelan, PayPal; Heather Reynolds, Eishtech; Dave Shanahan, AbbVie; and Paul Sweeney, ICTU.

 

The Council has been reconfigured to help drive the development and implementation of the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs.

 

The new NCC will continue to produce work on policy documents like the annual Ireland’s Competitiveness Scorecard, but, in a change to its mandate it will now be asked to input to the “Building Competitive Advantage” section of each subsequent Action Plan for Jobs Report.

 

Membership of the new reconfigured Council was announced ahead of its first meeting with the Minister in Government Buildings later today. The meeting will coincide with a meeting held by the Taoiseach and Minister Bruton with the six Industry Partners, leading private sector figures appointed recently to the NCC to help drive reforms to support increased job-creation.