The outstanding lifelong contribution to the Irish co-operative movement by beef and sheep farmer Brendan O’Mahony, a former chair and current director, for over two decades in the National Federation of Group Water Schemes (NFGWS), has been recognised.
He was presented with the co-operative industry’s highest national honour, the Plunkett award for co-operative endeavour.
From Cross, Co. Mayo, he attended the ceremony at the Irish Co-Operative Organisation Society (ICOS) headquarters in Dublin recently with his daughter Cathriona; son Fergal; daughter-in-law Georgina; and grandchildren Niamh and Conor.
Extraordinary contribution
Presenting the Plunkett Award, ICOS president Jerry Long said that Brendan O’Mahony has made a truly outstanding contribution on a local and a national level.
He said the Mayo farmer had worked 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 a 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 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,” Jerry said.
Brendan has served on the board of the NFGWS since it was established in February 1997, almost 23 years ago. He was appointed by the board as joint treasurer in his first year and then as chairperson of the organisation in 2002. 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 group water scheme governance using the co-operative structure.
It had grown under Brendan’s stewardship, with over 400 group water scheme affiliate members, the vast majority of which are co-operative entities themselves.
Brendan was one of the founding members of the Cross group water scheme in Co. Mayo, now the Cross Group Water Scheme Co-Operative Society, of which he is a member and shareholder.
He acted as secretary of the original group water scheme from when it was established in the mid-1970s and encouraged the scheme to form a co-operative in 2007.
IFA involvement
The Mayo farmer has been an active member of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) for many years and has served in five different executive positions since 1993.
He served both as county secretary and chairperson to Mayo IFA. He served four years as a member of the IFA national council and was then elected vice-president of the IFA Connacht region, serving a full term of four years.
This was followed by a term on the IFA rules and privilege committee. He continues to be a member of the IFA and is still involved in a number of local agricultural co-operatives.
These include the national rural water services committee of which he was a member until the committee was replaced by the national water forum in 2017.
He was also a member of two regional fishery boards, the Western Regional Fishery Board in Galway and the North Western Regional Fishery Board in Ballina. He was instrumental in dissolving these boards and establishing the newly formed ‘Inland Fisheries Ireland’, which he chaired from 2010 to 2015.
ICOS represents over 130 co-operatives in Ireland including the Irish dairy processing co-operatives and livestock marts, the associated businesses of which have a combined turnover in the region of €14 billion, with 150,000 individual members, employing 12,000 people in Ireland, and a further 24,000 people overseas.