Mayo teenager appointed to CIÉ Youth Board

Nineteen-year-old Latisha McCrudden from Belmullet was named part of Córas Iompair Éireann’s (CIÉ) Youth Board.

The inaugural board was introduced by CIÉ today.

As Ireland's largest public transport provider, the Youth Board aims to progress and re-imagine the future of public transport in Ireland. 

The impressive line-up of young people is meeting together for the first time today since their formal appointment last week. 

Ms McCrudden has been an activist since she was 15 years old. She is involved in the Irish Traveller Movement Youth Forum, the National Women's Council of Ireland, Spunout and the National Youth Assembly of Ireland. She also loves karate and is a First Dan Black Belt.

The Youth Board will act as an advisory board, providing insights, feedback and suggestions to feed into CIÉ’s board. It will address some key challenges and opportunities faced by CIÉ Group - from sharing a youth perspective on operational issues to reimagining how to encourage the public at large to move from private to public transport. 

Fiona Ross, Outgoing Chairperson of CIÉ Board, spearheaded the project, calling it part of CIÉ’s journey to ‘transform Ireland’s public transport system’. 

“We believe that having the perspective of young people, through a Youth Board informing our decision-making, will make us better as an organisation and deliver better outcomes for Ireland. We wanted to engage a diverse group of young people - creative, forward-thinking, ambitious young people - to collaborate with us to evolve and grow Ireland’s public transport system, future-proofing CIÉ. 

“We were blown away with the quantity and quality of applicants. So many talented young people applied, and we are delighted to have secured such a skilled and diverse group to sit on our first Youth Board. I can’t wait to see what they will achieve and have no doubt that their input will leave a lasting legacy for CIÉ and all who use public transport,” she continued.

CIÉ launched its search for Transport Trailblazers to join its new Youth Board last month, having engaged directly with national youth organisations in addition to a social media recruitment campaign. The recruitment drive saw two hundred and fifty young people apply to be part of the fifteen-person youth board. 

The successful candidates represent a diverse mix of enthusiastic, motivated, open-minded and forward-thinking young people from different lived experiences and geographical locations, who are active users of Ireland’s public transport system and want to collaborate to bring a youth perspective to decision-making. 

The response to applications far exceeded expectations, as did the calibre of candidates applying, indicative of the passion of young people to have a say in the future of Ireland’s public transport system. 

The youth board will kick off its two-year board tenure in earnest in September.