Mick Leahy retires

Mick leahy, Mister IT in ESB, retired in June after 40 years of outstanding service. ESB's success in delivering massive IT Projects over the years has been largely attributable to Mick and the dedicated team he built around him. The usual mantra about large projects – take twice as long, deliver only half the benefits and cost twice as much – never applied to Mick and his team, as they delivered some of the largest Corporate IT Systems ever developed in ESB.

Mick cut his teeth on MOCCS – a comprehensive budgeting and costing information system – the first time a large commercial application had been used in ESB. In the middle of this massive programme, Mick completed his MBA degree in UCD. Mick then spent some years on ESB's foreign affairs, travelling to many distant and exotic places, such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Pakistan, Egypt, Bahrain and Vietnam. Given Mick's taste in food, these forays were very challenging, but undaunted Mick ate for ESB.

Mick then took on the task of replacing MOCCS with the FMIS project, which was successfully delivered by 1999, just in time for Y2K. Mick and his team then moved on to the Market Opening Programme (MOIP). Due to the size of this programme, its complexity, public profile outside ESB and an exceptionally tight timeframe – ESB's reputation was publicly on the line. Where many other utilities and industries had failed, Mick and his team had a glorious triumph, which was readily acknowledged by the Regulator and other industry players.

The final act in Mick's career was to develop and establish the role of Chief Information Officer within the company. A new organisation, an IT Governance Framework and a Corporate IT Strategy had all been put in place before Mick departed into the next phase of his life. The presentation to Mick was made by Tony Donnelly, Deputy Chief Executive and was attended by Mick's family, Breda, Deirdre and Robbie. We wish all of them a long happy and healthy retirement following a job exceedingly well done.