Fingal welcomes a New Age Friendly Alliance Chair

Fingal County Council is delighted to welcome the appointment of Senan Turnbull as the new chair of Fingal’s Age Friendly Alliance and takes this opportunity to thank Jim Glennon, the previous chair, for his hard work and dedication. Senan has a wealth of experience of volunteering from local to national levels including charities, sports, community and local development organisations.

Fingal’s Age Friendly Alliance works as a multi-agency hub for knowledge transfer, connections & networks and information exchange between each of the members service providers.  The Alliance is committed to enhancing the quality of life of older people in Fingal, by guiding and coordinating the strategic development of Fingal as an age friendly county, through the development and oversight of cross sectoral age friendly initiatives.

Consisting  of members from the Health Service Executive; An Garda Síochána; Dublin and Dun Laoghaire Education and Training Board; Dublin City University; TU Dublin Blanchardstown; Fingal Elected Representatives; Local Link Transport Co-Ordination Unit; Age & Opportunity; Fingal County Council Elected Members, Housing, Community and Libraries Departments; Local Link; Healthy Ireland; Alone; as well as representatives from Fingal’s Older Peoples Council, Fingal’s Age Friendly Alliance works collaboratively on delivering the actions that form the basis of the Age Friendly Strategy to ensure that Fingal is truly great place in which to grow old and to enjoy.

Following the resignation of Jim Glennon as chair of the Alliance earlier this year, a vacancy arose for a person with strong leadership qualities to oversee the development of a new five-year Age Friendly strategy for Fingal and Fingal Age Friendly are delighted to announce that Senan Turnbull has accepted the role. This is also an opportune time to thank Jim Glennon, most sincerely, for his hard work and dedication to Fingal’s Age Friendly Alliance during his time in the Chair.

Senan has a wealth of experience of volunteering from local to national levels including charities, sports, community and local development organisations. He paralleled this with a working career of over thirty years across a range of state agencies culminating in the position of Director of Community, Recreation and Amenities in Fingal County Council until his retirement in 2010.

Over the past thirteen years he has been a member of two state boards and a volunteer member of national charities as well as developing a specialty in working with charities and sports bodies to become compliant with the respective Governance Codes for their sectors.

In his working career he has been part of a wide range of multi-agency committees established to look at integrated public service responses to quality-of-life matters. These include the National Agreements based in the Department of the Taoiseach in the 1990s, Area Development Companies, County Childcare Committees, Sports Partnerships, Drugs Task Forces and the Fingal County Development Committee.

These experiences will serve him well in this new role appointed by Fingal County Council Chief Executive, AnnMarie Farrelly.  Senan will chair the Alliance and will liaise closely with the Fingal Older Persons’ Council in overseeing the development of a new five-year strategy.

Chief Executive AnnMarie Farrelly, said “I am delighted that Senan has agreed to take on the role of Chair for Fingal’s Age Friendly Alliance. His experience and knowledge will be valuable when leading the Alliance through the development of the new Age Friendly Strategy 2024-2029. Aligning multi-agency visions and objectives in the delivery of age friendly services will result in a robust strategy that will meet the needs of Fingal’s older citizens and ensure that Fingal is a great place to grow older in.”

Speaking about his new role Senan said: “The ability of the agencies to meet the expectations of our older citizens will be challenging. Having worked on many other such committees over the years I realise that not everything that we wish for is easily achieved, but the Alliance will focus on the priorities set out in the new strategy, especially the easy-wins, and it will build the processes to enable the more complex issues to be dealt with in as timely and comprehensive manner as possible’.

Tricia Matthews, Age Friendly Programme Manager said, “I am very much looking forward to working with Senan on the development and implementation of a new Fingal Age Friendly Strategy 2024 – 2029. A strategy that, through a multi-agency approach, will be action driven to improve the lives of all older citizens living in Fingal”

Senan understands that success in delivery of any Age Friendly Strategy requires input from the Fingal’s older citizens who are living and experiencing life in Fingal from an older perspective.  He encourages all to make submissions to the Strategy when called on later this year and encourages all older groups in the county to fully engage with the Fingal Older Persons’ Council [email protected] to learn from and participate in its work in influencing the Alliance towards better services and infrastructure.