BIG READ: Well-known Tipperary engineer appointed to prestigious role

Well-known Tipperary civil engineer and business person, Billy Morrissey from Bansha, was recently appointed Chair of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators - Ireland Branch (CIArb), with responsibility for all of Ireland including the Northern Irish Chapter.

CIArb is the world’s leading qualification and professional body for dispute avoidance and dispute management in commercial and civil matters and has over 18,000 members in 149 branches globally.

The Irish Branch of the Institute is 40-years-old this year and has over seven hundred members of various primary professions comprising solicitors, barristers, engineers, surveyors, accountants, architects, and others.

Billy has decades of proven technical and commercial experience in Ireland and internationally at senior management level in both the public and private sectors.

He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a Chartered Member of Engineers Ireland and has a Master’s Degree in Construction Law and Arbitration.

Billy, who still lives in the Glen of Aherlow, was educated at the Abbey CBS Tipperary, UCC, UCD and Trinity College Dublin, acts as an advisor to the public, construction, and property sectors and as adjudicator and conciliator in construction contract disputes on public infrastructure projects.

What’s more, Billy is committed to promoting the unique aims of the Institute, a key global player in the promotion of dispute resolution and the enabling and training of its members for success with a particular emphasis this year in promoting more diversity and inclusiveness in the sector.

Strategically, he considers that the transition to a low carbon economy requires unprecedented investment.

That’s why this together with climate mitigation investment in infrastructure is going to amount to trillions of dollars of investment in energy and infrastructure globally and will become society’s main challenge over the coming decades.

“Our members can play a key role in facilitating this necessary change and investment. We need to be able to utilise alternative dispute resolution to resolve climate related disputes and underwrite investments in green infrastructure.

“This is a huge opportunity for our members, particularly younger Irish members of the profession to play a key role, locally and globally,” said Billy.

But what about the difficulties of running a national professional body and coping with international duties as part of a global organisation given the restrictions of a global pandemic? Billy said: “It is working very well for me; I’m making progress and getting results, I have great support from my committee and my family.

“It is clear now that none of us will be going back to the old ways and it is incumbent on all of us to embrace technology and new ways of blended working, learning and communication as well as providing more climate friendly services into the future.

“We must all embed the use of technology as an integral part of our professional tool-kit.”