EU official visits Ballina alma mater

EU official visits Ballina alma mater


Anna Marie Flynn

A BALLINA native will make the long trip from Brussels to pay a return visit her alma matter later this week – and it is all part of the EU-wide ‘Back to School’ initiative.
European Commission employee Josephine Gallagher-Fitzhenry is set to return to the hallowed halls of St Mary’s Secondary School, Convent of Mercy, Ballina, to present the all-girls school with a first-hand account of the workings of the European Union.
Ms Gallagher-Fitzhenry will talk to students about her daily life as an employee in the Employment Department of the Commission in Brussels in a bid to overcome the common belief that the administration is full of ‘faceless bureaucrats’.  As part of the ‘Back to School’ scheme, almost 100 Irish EU officials return to their old schools as past pupils.
“I’m delighted to get back home to Mayo,” said Ms Gallagher-Fitzhenry.  “I’ll be talking about my role training staff who work in the EU Commission,” she added.
The officials’ back to school project was carried out for the first time in January 2007, during the German EU Council Presidency, on the initiative of German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel. The experience was repeated in autumn 2007, and again in 2008.
Ballina is just one of the locations for this year’s project with a whole host of other Brussels officials, including David O’Sullivan, the EU’s Director General for Trade, and Catherine Day, Secretary-General of the European Commission, returning home.
Irish press officer for the Commission Ruth Deasy said she is pleased so many Irish people working for the EU have taken up the invitation to go back to their old schools.
“I know many of them are really keen to talk about their experience at the coal face in Brussels. And lots of them have really interesting jobs…it just goes to show Irish people do well wherever you put them!” she said.