Gaye Cunningham retires

After 34 years in ESB, Gaye Cunningham retired on Friday, November 23rd. Gaye's ESB career commenced in February 1973 as a clerical officer in Personnel Services. During the 1970s, Gaye began to play an active role in women's issues which led in the early 1980s to Gaye becoming Secretary of the Women's Committee of the ICTU.

This was a time when there were very fundamental issues around women's rights and conditions for working women. In the 1970s and 1980s women's health issues, such as breast and cervical cancer, while present, were not spoken about publicly. Gaye fought for more openness, debate and action on these issues.

Continuing in her career, Gaye moved to Information Section, Manpower Dept and in 1982 she was appointed as an Executive Officer in the Dublin North West District. In 1988, Gaye filled the role of Equality Officer with the ESBOA and went on to hold several positions with them. She also held the role of secretary of the ESB Group of Unions. In 1989, Gaye was appointed to the Employment Appeals Tribunal by the then Minister for Labour, Bertie Ahern. In 1990, she decided to pursue further studies and began a BA in Industrial Relations and Personal Management at the National College of Industrial Relations. In 1994 she was appointed to the post of personnel officer in Dublin Region. Gaye's move into a HR role proved to be where she excelled and, to further her knowledge and skills in HR, she decided to study again and did an MBS in HR Strategies in DCU between 1997/1999.

In May 2000, Gaye moved to ESB Power Generation as HR Manager in Poolbeg. Here Gaye took on the role of staff champion. She was a true advocate of partnership and developed a very constructive partnership group in Poolbeg. Gaye left ESB Power Generation in April 2003 to take up the position of Manager Organisational Change & Communications in ESB Networks.

One of Gaye's many talents is stakeholder management. She always had a clear view of who needs to know what and when. She is an expert at tailoring a message and delivering a complex message in ways that the intended audience would understand. Gaye has had a very varied and successful career in ESB. Her contribution in all the roles she filled was top class and more importantly she also motivated, encouraged and supported many others to achieve their full potential. Gaye leaves a long legacy of things that she has done both inside and outside ESB.

She will be remembered as a person who always delivered, who is compassionate, fair, very aware of social justice and is great fun. She was involved in many organisations and initiatives including: Women's Aid, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the establishment of ElectricAid and the ESBOA, to name but a few. Gaye is moving to a role for which she is ideally suited as Rights Commissioner in the Labour Relations Commission. We wish Gaye all the best for the future.