Our Board

Huge has over 50 years’ experience in the delivery and management of health and social services. He has held senior management roles in the health boards and HSE up to 2010. Huge served as the CEO of the Mental Health Commission, Sunbeam house services and the Children’s health foundation, and was also the Chief Operations officer of Genio Trust. He trained as a family therapist and hold qualifications in Legal studies and Adult and Community education. Huge has chaired the board of Mental Health Ireland since 2020 and also chairs two other charities.

Dr Ann Sheridan, PhD, M.Ed., BNS, RPN, RGN, RNT. Emeritus Full Professor of Nursing University College Dublin

Ann has over 40 years’ experience in mental health services, education and research. She has extensive expertise and experience in working with diverse health care professionals, patients/service users and carers. With a particular commitment to building research capacity among her clinical and academic colleagues, with service users/patients and carers groups, she successfully engaged and supported these diverse groups to become involved in the full spectrum of research activity. She enabled them to pursue their ideas, inviting and supporting contribution to preparation, submission and conduct of funded research; knowledge transfer, exchange and dissemination activities as co-applicants and members of research teams. She has published extensively in peer reviewed academic journals and in a range of textbooks.

Sushil has lived experience as a family supporter spanning many years. His professional experience comes from working in large multi-national commercial organisations and more recently in an Irish SME of which he is co-owner and Director.

Since 2017 he has worked as a volunteer with HSE Mental Health Engagement & Recovery at both local and national level. He is a serving Board member for Mental Health Ireland and a member of the Finance and Audit Committee. He is passionate about promoting the voice of family and supporters in mental health services to help drive changes in policy and practice that will provide support for families and supporters as well as the service users.

Ruairí Mulrean is a Partner in the Byrne Wallace Shields LLP Corporate Team. Ruairí practises in the areas of corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring and insolvency. Ruairí also practices in the areas of company and commercial law advising both international and domestic clients. In particular he focuses on corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring and insolvency. Ruairí advises both domestic and international clients in a wide range of sectors including energy, waste and manufacturing. Ruairí has a particular interest in taxation being a member of the Irish Taxation Institute and has advised on various tax driven group reorganisations and the implementation of other tax driven structures.

Eilish joined the Board of Mental Health Ireland in 2019. She is a retired primary school teacher. A graduate of Carysfort College of Education in 1979 , she began her teaching career in Holy Cross Primary School in Killarney in 1979 as a class teacher.
She moved to St. Marks Junior School, Springfield in Tallaght in 1981 , teaching all class levels. From 2003 to 2019 she was a resource teacher for children with special educational needs, including children with specific learning difficulties, ASD, speech and language difficulties, and children for whom English is their second language. She was deputy principal of St. Mark’s, Tallaght from 2006 to 2019. She holds a Bachelor of Education Degree from Carysfort College of Education, Blackrock , a Post Graduate Diploma in Learning Support from The College of Education, Rathmines and Trinity College, Dublin, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Special Educational Needs from St. Patricks College DCU.

John Gibbons is Chartered Accountant with 20 years experience working in international business across multiple industries. John is the Group CFO and Executive Director of ATA, an Irish headquartered precision engineering company that manufactures and distributes cutting tools to leading industrial companies from their 11 facilities around the world. Prior to joining ATA, John spent 8 years with Dole plc (previously Total Produce), the New York stock exchange listed fresh produce company, where he focused primarily on corporate finance. John trained as a chartered accountant at KPMG. John also serves as a non-executive director of SwiftComply, a US-based gov-tech company.

Pauline has significant experience in community development and supporting families in her role as Community Development Worker at West Clare Family Resource Centre.