Sean Mahon FRIAI

RIAI President 2024-2025

Seán Mahon served previously as RIAI First Vice-President and chaired the workgroup that developed the RIAI Strategy 2023-2027. Sean has worked across many areas of the RIAI over the last 30 years including education, practice and architecture. He has worked to strengthen the position of the architect within the design team and to bring awareness to the diverse range of skills within the profession.  

He has also served on various boards and committees within the architectural and healthcare sectors in Ireland, including as a former President of the Architectural Association of Ireland (AAI).

Seán is a Registered Architect with over 25 years’ experience in design, planning and development of healthcare facilities. His projects include many of the recent national projects, including the new National Children’s Hospital; the National Maternity Hospital; the National Rehabilitation Hospital (RIAI Award 2021); and the North-West Cancer Centre (RIAI Award 2018). He continues to advise many healthcare providers and the HSE on current projects and strategies.

Seán graduated from the School of Architecture UCD in 1986 and worked with James Stirling in London and Berlin before returning to Dublin in 1990 to work with O’Donnell + Tuomey on cultural projects in Temple Bar. He is a founding Director of O’Connell Mahon Architects in 1998 and has been Managing Director since 2008. 

Áine Stapleton

Assistant Secretary

Responsibility at Assistant Secretary level in the Department of Housing Local Government and Heritage for the Social Housing Delivery Division with responsibility for leading and overseeing the delivery of commitments in the Programme for Government in respect of social housing. This includes working with local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies to accelerate and increase the delivery of social housing homes, through a range of build, acquisition and leasing programmes.

Paul Hogan 

Acting Assistant Secretary – Head of the Planning Division, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH)

Paul Hogan has been the acting Head of the Planning Division at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage since January 2023.  He has more than 30 years’ experience of working in planning and development in Ireland and the UK.

Paul is currently responsible for leading reform of the planning system, through the Planning Bill, revision of the NPF and the provision of enhanced resourcing for the planning sector.

Paul’s previous roles at the Department of Housing were as Principal Adviser and Senior Adviser and included managing the NPF and the planning and land elements of Housing for All.  Prior to joining the Department in 2015, Paul was Senior Planner at South Dublin County Council, where he led the development of the Adamstown Strategic Development Zone and also initiated the development of the Design Manual for Urban Roads and Streets (DMURS).  Paul previously worked in local Government at Kildare and Meath County Councils and in the private sector, both in Ireland and the UK.  He has a Master of Regional and Urban Planning degree from UCD (1992) and recently completed a higher diploma in Organisational Change and Transformation, also at UCD.  He is a Fellow of the Irish Planning Institute.

Charlotte Sheridan

Architect and Town Planner

Charlotte is a Registered Architect and Town Planner, with over 25 years’ experience as a Director of Sheridan Woods Architects + Urban Planners. She served as the President of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland from 2022-2023 and was a non-executive Director of the RIAI from 2019 to 2023. She is a member of the RIAI and the Irish Planning Institute. She is a non-executive Director of the National Asset Management Agency since 2020. Charlotte is a member of the Irish Cities 2070 group, the RIAI/DHLGH Joint Housing Committee, and the IPI Urban Design and Transportation Committee. Charlotte is a passionate advocate for quality-led plans for towns, villages and urban neighbourhoods, specialising in urban regeneration, housing, sustainable communities and collaborative planning.

Martin Colreavy MRIAI

Head of Strategic Delivery and Urban Advisory (SDUA) Unit

Affordable Housing Division

Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage

Martin Colreavy leads the Strategic Delivery & Urban Advisory Unit whose core priorities focus on the implementation of Housing Affordability, via programmes such as the Affordable Housing Fund (AHF) and Cost Rental Sectoral support (CREL), while enabling Housing for All Actions such as Croí Cónaithe Cities Scheme and the Land Development Agency’s (LDA) Project Tosaigh. For 2024, his unit is tasked with progessing a revised Affordable Housing Strategy following a review of the National Planning Framework.

From 2018 – 2021, Martin previously was a member of the senior management team in the Planning and Urban Policy Division of DHLGH, with responsibility for EU/Urban Policy and Regeneration including advisory to the €2 billion capital investment programme under the National Development Plan (Urban Regeneration and Development Fund) and the new Towns Centre First Programme.

From 2008 – 2018 he was the Chief Architectural Advisor/Principal Officer in the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and head of business for Built Heritage, Architectural Policy and Strategic Infrastructure.

Alan Kelly

Planning Lead, LDA

Alan is a chartered town planner with over 20 years’ experience in the planning and property industry across the public and private sector in both the UK and Ireland. During that time Alan has worked on commercial, mixed use, renewable energy and residential schemes and also extensively on stakeholder engagement on projects like the Corrib Gas project and on grid projects for EirGrid.

Alan joined the LDA in 2020 and is currently Planning Lead with specific focus on strategic regeneration areas that have significant potential to deliver compact sustainable and mixed-use development on state owned brownfield lands. These include lands at Colbert Station in Limerick, Inchicore in Dublin and Sandy Road in Galway. Alan also led the preparation of the recently published Report on Relevant Public Land on behalf of the LDA which focused on the potential of state land to deliver affordable and social homes on state land in the five main cities and five key growth towns.

Claire McManus MRIAI 

RIAI Spokesperson on Housing

Claire chairs the RIAI Housing Committee and is an RIAI Spokesperson on Housing. She holds an MBA and is involved in the research and development of RIAI policy with respect to Housing.  Claire is a member of several other housing committees including the Housing Agency’s ‘Supply & Affordability Panel’, the DHLG/RIAI ‘Joint Housing Committee’ and Tuath Housing Association’s ‘Development Committee’. Claire is a director of JFOC Architects, a practice specializing in large scale housing projects.

Daniel Miller

Author and Professor at University College London

Daniel is a professor of anthropology at University College London and a visiting professor at University College Dublin, He is author/editor of 44 books including The Good Enough Life (Polity Press 2024) and Ageing with Smartphones in Ireland (UCL Press 2021) which was written with Pauline Garvey of Maynooth University. He is mainly associated with the development of two branches of anthropology - the study of material culture and digital anthropology. @Dannyanth 

Dr Conor Norton

Head of the School of Architecture, Building and Environment in TU Dublin, coordinating the strategic development and management of the four discipline areas of Architecture, Architectural Technologies, Construction and Building Performance and Environment and Planning. 

He is currently developing a new School Strategy that is focussed on accessible and innovative education for sustainable development across teaching, engagement and research.  Conor teaches and supervises in the areas of urban regeneration and urban design and he is active in research on the urban centre, urban regeneration, landscape planning, urban design and planning policy.

Dr Conor a regular commentator on planning and issues affecting towns and cities. He has served on numerous National policy advisory groups including Town Centres First, the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund, the Construction Sector Group of DPER, and Marine Spatial Planning. As a planner and an urban designer with over 30 years of experience, he remains engaged in professional practice with Loci, and has prepared many notable placemaking, urban design and masterplanning policies, plans, projects in Ireland and abroad.  He is a Member of the Urban Design Group, a Corporate Planner and former President of the Irish Planning Institute (2020 to 2022), a Chartered Town Planner and a former Chair of the Royal Town Planning Institute Ireland (2015), and country representative at the Association of the European Schools of Planning.

Éadaoin Ní Fhearghail

Architectural Advisor, DHLGH

Éadaoin is an Architectural Advisor with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage’s Climate and Construction Innovation Unit. She works on delivery of actions under Housing for All related to Modern Methods of Construction, construction innovation and research, and construction costs. She is a registered Architect, with an MSc in Town Planning and a Professional Diploma in Housing Studies. She has previously worked in private practice on the design and delivery of medium and high-density housing schemes.

Jason Taylor

Urban Designer and Planner

Jason is an Urban Designer and Planner with a wide range of experiences working within the private and public sectors, in Australia and Ireland.  Jason has worked in Ireland from 2003-2006 and from 2009-the present, on projects such as the Adamstown SDZ, Clonburris SDZ, Poolbeg West SDZ, Design Manual for Urban Roads and Streets, Town Centre First, Urban Regeneration and Development Fund and more recently the Sustainable Residential Development and Compact Settlement Guidelines. Jason currently works as a Planning Adviser for the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in the field of Urban Policy and Transport.

Joan MacMahon

Senior Architect Advisor in the Social Housing Delivery Division of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage

Since joining the Department in 2016, Joan has advised on the technical aspects of Social Housing Delivery.  Joan has contributed to the Department’s Design Manual for Quality Housing, the Housing Options for our Ageing Population Policy Statement, Town Centre Living design competitions and more recently on the Accelerated Delivery Programme.  A graduate of DIT and registered architect, Joan worked in private practice for almost 20 years prior to joining the Department, and served as a member of council at the RIAI from 2017-2019.

Gareth Williams

Architectural Advisor, DHLGH

Gareth is an Architect Advisor in the Social Housing Delivery Division of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage who advises on the technical aspects of Social Housing Delivery.  Gareth is a Member of the Joint Housing Committee between the RIAI and the Department, who run the biennial Housing Conference.

Gareth has contributed to the RIAI / Department’s Town Centre Living architectural design competitions along with the Departments’ Design Build Programme and the current Accelerated Delivery programme. A graduate of DIT and registered Architect, Gareth worked in private practice for over fifteen years in Ireland and in the Netherlands prior to joining the Department. He also holds a Masters in Environmental Science.

Eoin O’Dowd

Eoin is a Building Standards Advisor in the Building Standards Advisory in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. He has previously worked with Carlow Fire & Rescue Service, the Local Government Management Agency, and Dublin Fire Brigade. Eoin has a B.Sc from Dublin Institute of Technology, and a Diploma in Law. He is a Chartered Building Control Surveyor and Registered Building Surveyor.

Cian Deegan PhD MRIAI and Alice Casey MRIAI

TAKA architects 

TAKA is an architectural practice based in Dublin, Ireland with experience on a wide range of projects in the private domestic, arts, educational and public sectors. 

The practice is focused on creating buildings, places and moments which have a distinct, engaging character.

David Creighton

Director of Services for Integration at Kildare County Council

Recently appointed A/Director of Services for Integration at Kildare County Council. David graduated from DIT Bolton Street in 1994. He joined Kildare County Council from private practice in 2008 and was appointed Senior Architect in March 2020. While at Kildare County Council he have worked primarily in the delivery, maintenance, adaptation and retrofitting of social housing

Mick Mulhern

Town Planner and Urban Designer

Mick is a qualified Town Planner and Urban Designer with nearly 20 years’ experience. He spent a considerable amount of time working in London across a range of complex planning, regeneration, and development projects, including spending 12 years working for the Mayor of London in various roles including; interim Chief Executive of the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation; a senior officer helping coordinate the Mayor’s response to the London Riots and associated programme of ‘Placemaking’ improvements in some of London’s most deprived locations of Croydon and Tottenham; as well as working as a planning and design officer on the preparation of plans for large development projects including the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. In 2019, Mick returned to Ireland to take on the role of Director of Planning and Transport in South Dublin County Council. Working on the Council’s Corporate Management Team, Mick is responsible for leading the Council’s plans to deliver a significant amount of growth across the Counties Strategic Development Zones and Regeneration lands at Adamstown, Clonburris, Tallaght, Fortunestown and the City Edge lands. Mick is also responsible for ensuring the County develops a sustainable transport network including leading delivery of the Council’s ambitious Cycle South Dublin programme and Placemaking improvements to the Counties network of Towns, Villages and Centres.

Conference Programme Day 1 - Monday, 11 March

Attending a one-day conference entitles you to 5 Structured CPD Points.

Conference Programme Day 2 - Tuesday, 12 March

Attending a one-day conference entitles you to 5 Structured CPD Points.