Under the Microscope

Deirdre O’Hara

Job Title:
Manager, Market Strategy, Independent Generation, ESBI.

My job is to influence developments in the forthcoming all-Ireland Single Electricity Market on behalf of ESBI’s independent power plants, Coolkeeragh in particular.

Who are those closest to you?
My husband Patrick, my mother Grace and my sisters and nieces.

How do you relax?
Scuba diving, hill-walking, coaching juniors in my rowing club and reading.

Where do you consider your most idyllic holiday location?
My most memorable holiday was two weeks touring Namibia after a stint on ESBIe&fm’s assignment as Technical Advisor to the Kudu Power Project. It is a spectacular country with wonderful wildlife and landscapes, an interesting variety of people, and good food.

What person has influenced you most?
My mother is the person I most admire and my main influence in ESBI has been my long-term colleague and occasional mentor Gay Nolan. I also admire Philip Clarke for having the vision of an ESB power plant in Spain and then single-mindedly pursuing that vision (with some early help from me) until it was realised at Amorebieta.

What upsets you most?
Walking past homeless people on my way to work in what we are now told is the second richest country in the world. Like a lot of ESBI staff I have witnessed terrible poverty in the developing countries where some of our projects take us and was a VSO volunteer in Ghana in the late 1980s.

What are the values you look for in people?
Openness to new ideas, a sense of humour and honesty.

What person would you most like to meet?
Granuaile. My mother’s maiden name was Grace O’Malley, so I am one of the many claiming descent from the pirate queen.

What is your ‘secret’ ambition?
I studied for an M.Sc. in underwater archaeology some years ago and I would love to discover an important Irish shipwreck, and to study and publish it.