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Reform is coming! If you’ve been following his recent comments, Jack Chambers, our Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure and Public Service Reform is about to step up a gear on two counts, pulling in the Budget over-runs and making our public agencies effective again. Your Family Business Network has worked productively with Minister Chambers in his previous Finance ministry. And we’ll be ready to respond appropriately when he soon delivers Ireland’s 2026 Budget on 7 October. We appreciated him opening our National Family Business Conference in the middle of his very busy schedule.
Setting the tone for a great day for Ireland’s family businesses, the Minister’s opening address teed up a super panel comprising Sean O’Driscoll, Jenny Melia and Barry Smith. Seán’s many roles include his current chairing of the government’s Taskforce to accelerate Ireland’s infrastructure delivery. Our Conference attendees universally applauded Seán’s promise that his Taskforce won’t hold back in their upcoming recommended actions to fix Ireland’s broken planning and infrastructure delivery framework. And your Family Business Network will be the first to applaud what promises to be a game-changer on the scale of Ireland’s great Whitaker/Lemass era, for a better Ireland ahead.
Jenny Melia gave our Family Business Conference one of her very first public addresses as Enterprise Ireland’s new CEO. She promises a programme of relevant and accessible supports for business throughout the country – and we’ll certainly support that!
Barry Smith’s Family Business, ABCON, employs 200 local people in Cootehill. So he can certainly vouch for the cause of Ireland’s great local Family employers and he calls it straight every time. Always constructive, Barry and his family are exactly who our Family Business Network stands for because of exactly what they stand for!
In any great Conference, it’s not just about who’s on the stage – it’s also the buzz at the coffee and lunch breaks! That’s the sound of our Family Business Members and Friends getting a great opportunity to catch up, share stories and take mutual pride in the uniqueness of what it is to run not just any business – but a Family Business. Hats off too to the super service team at The Helix in Dublin City University, we’ll be back for sure.
After the break, we took a look at some different angles on the world of our Family Businesses. Sally Williams is among the Fifth Generation of Ireland’s great Musgrave Family, known to all as the Founders of Ireland’s Supervalu Centra supermarket group. Sally is the first woman to lead the Musgrave Family Council and she talked about the importance of ensuring that multi- generational successors, no matter how far afield, grow with a clear sense of the Founders’ Legacy of Mission and Purpose and carry those core values forward into their own future worlds.
John Conroy from Redesdale noted the interlinked worlds of Families investing for both Value and Values, citing the work of the legendary Lever Brothers, the Founders of the Port Sunlight community for their workers in 1888.
And Nora Lillis from Gartlan Furey updated us on aspects of importance from the recent Assisted Decision-making Capacity Act which has real impact on many Families’ forward planning.
Before lunch, we took a look at some key business issues affecting every Family firm these days. On Cyber threats for instance, Martin Flanagan from Arachas encouraged a positive focus on controlling the controllables and appropriately covering the rest.
Daire Keating from Pinergy noted that, as well as accessing competitive energy pricing for Family Businesses, there are significant opportunities to actually reduce energy consumption in every Family Business.
Similar risk and cost management in the HR space was the focus of Jerome Forde from HR Duo and we’ll be bringing our Family Business Network Members more Member-only benefits from Arachas, Pinergy and HR Duo, as well as our new Family Business Coaching partner, Praesta, in the weeks ahead, as yet another benefit of your Family Business Network Membership.
After an encouragingly noisy lunch break (!), our Next Generation Members took to the stage to share their Stories. Stalwart Family Business Network Members Etáin Moran from OxygenCare, Keith McGrath from McGrath Limestone, Aisling Hickey from All in All Ingredients and Louise Tracey from Ascot Express Freight were typically inspirational in how they respected those who built the businesses they now share and the vision of how they each want to leave such proud legacy values to their own Successors in due course. Their stories are unique but their passion is the same ; Ireland’s Family Businesses are clearly in good hands !
Time to talk about the uniqueness of Ireland’s Family Businesses and our next panel was able to describe this from the inside and out. Colm Kelleher succeeded to his Family-owned LHK Insurance and FinanceOne financial services business, but only after cutting his teeth in the free world and proving his destiny to himself.
Ireland’s largest cohort of Family Businesses are, of course, our Farmers. And Denise Walshe served Lakelands Dairies suppliers over many years and she vouched for the resilience, drive and acumen of Ireland’s family businesses.
Colm Murphy from Praesta (you’ll hear more about our new collaboration with Praesta’s expert coaches soon) took us inside the unique mind of the Founder in Ireland’s Family Businesses in all its pride and all its struggle – exactly what our Family Business Network exists to support !
Our grand finale was hosted by Family Business Network President Michael Walsh in conversation with Jacky Tehan and Conor Roche. Conor and Jacky took us through the extraordinary story of the original Roche brothers, who built from nothing what was to become the world’s biggest construction industry firm. Along the way, with joys and tribulations alike, the Roches grew to become a Family that inspired and supported numerous others, not least the Founders of our Family Business Network. We’re hugely grateful to Jacky and Conor for telling their story so generously !
Michael’s closing remarks appropriately thanked all our contributors and supporters, and most of all, our Member Families who make us who and what we are as a Community throughout Ireland.
As our strapline says, Ireland’s Family Business Network is By Families, For Families !
We make sure everyone in your Family Business gets unique Community and Peer Support, we Advocate for your needs with our Government on your behalf, we deliver the unique Learnings and Mentoring resources that Family Businesses need and we bring connections and friendships from across the global community of Family Businesses right to your door.