Engineering a future for Meath... Meet the new Chief Executive of Meath Co Council

It is often the case that the public service loses expertise and talent to the private sector, as people move to lucrative positions within industry after retirement or departure from State employment.

However, it has been the reverse in the case of the new Meath Co Council Chief Executive Officer, Kieran Kehoe, where the private sector’s loss has been public gain, and more than likely that Waterford’s loss will turn to Meath’s advantage.

This is a man not used to small scale projects - as an engineer, he has worked on the construction of football stadiums, power stations, and airports, and in his native Laois, has been responsible for getting 200,000 cars per day in and out of the National Ploughing Championships, as well as the smaller Electric Picnic crowd. So, we can assume that moving the traffic after a Slane Castle concert will be no bother!

But while he has worked on the big ticket items, he has a keen understanding of what makes a local authority tick – its people. Over his first week in the job, he has been meeting with as much of the 1,000 plus workforce of Meath Co Council as possible, especially the outdoor workers who are what he calls the “front face of Meath Co Council.”

“They are the ones that create the impression of what people see every day in Meath,” he says.

“I had a particular focus on meeting them. We had meet and greet sessions here in the Buvinda House headquarters, in Ashbourne, Duleek, and Trim, and I have met the bulk of the staff now. I want to give them a sense of me; a sense that I appreciate what they are doing for Meath Co Council; a sense of how I see us working together for the next seven, maybe 10 years.”

He is very conscious of the hugely important role of the outdoor staff; of the day to day work which to many may be seen as ordinary or trivial, like filling a pothole or fixing a footpath; cleaning a sign or emptying a bin; cutting grass; repairing and maintaining houses.

“They are all our day-to-day core services,” he says. “And it is crucial that we continue to maintain them to the excellent standards that we do at present.”

On top of that, he adds, these people are also to the forefront when emergencies happen like the flooding that occurred in east Meath over the August bank holiday weekend, or when there are severe weather events which are going to happen more and more and keep the people of Meath safe.

Kehoe’s CV is impressive. After graduating from University College Dublin with an engineering degree in the early 1990s, he worked with Butler Steel Erection and Fabrication company, helping to deliver construction projects. He started off as a design engineer, eventually becoming a project manager, and as well as domestic developments, worked on the steelwork design for Middlesbrough Football Stadium in the UK, Baghdad International Airport in Iraq following the Gulf War, and Aqaba Power Station in Jordan.

“These were huge scale projects for a young engineer, and a very exciting time,” he recalls. “They were a great introduction into a professional life; very results focussed.”

But it had always been in his mind to work in public service.

“If it doesn’t sound too grandiose, there was always a niggling there that I wanted to work in the public sector and see what I could do to help people. I made a personal choice at the time as to where my career wanted to go. I could probably have stayed in the private sector and had just as good a career.”

The Laois native returned home and joined the local authority there as a water services engineer in 2002, moving onto environment and roads departments. He then transferred over to the administrative side, joining the planning department first, then a role in economic development with planning, before becoming a director of services.

In the small council, he had responsibility for infrastructure projects, planning, economic development, and emergency services.

“It was a great learning curve, dealing with all those areas and the challenges that arose.”

He was the council lead on the Ploughing and Picnic events, moving traffic in and out of Stradbally, but is proud of other achievements there too, such as helping people who had been living in half-finished estates when the economic crash of the late noughties happened.

“The population had been growing, from 50,000 to 80,000 over a couple of census periods,” he explains. “Then, we were left with a quite serious legacy of a huge amount of unfinished estates. I met people in awful situations, living in half-built developments, in negative equity. We met them in my office, and on-site, and brought down people from the Department to see what we could do.”

Kehoe says he was in court 39 times over 18 months pursuing bond holders, and developers if they were still there, who hadn’t lived up to their side of the contract. But it was great to see the estates completed to a proper standard, and even if it took time, the end result and the impact it had on the lives of the residents , and their appreciation, brought huge satisfaction.

“Very few jobs give you the opportunity to do that,” he says.

That work championed by Laois County Council became the template subsequently published in ministerial guidelines.

Ready for new challenges, Kehoe moved to Waterford City and County Council.

“It had the city, a huge coastline, a massive tourism market, and the rural areas,” he says.

This was where all his previously acquired skills came to the fore, as he led the costing and engineering on a major project, securing €120 million in state funding for the North Quays development, and working with a developer to deliver a €250 million mixed use private development on the site.

“It will have a transformative effect on the city, and was a really exciting project to be part of and engaged in.”

Other projects he worked on there were a residential and retail core development on Michael Street in the city; securing funding for digital transformation in Dungarvan; securing €9 million in funding for dereliction and vacancy renewal; introducing Ireland’s first learn to cycle scheme at the end of the Greenway in Dungarvan, which boasts a skatepark, BMX trail and outdoor performance area.

As the fastest growing city in the country, he is happy to have been involved in its transformation following the blow of the Waterford Crystal closure and the effects of the economic recession.

As well as his work with local authorities, Kehoe was also building up wider experience as a member of the County and City Managers Association – the CCMA. On its joint utilities and local authorities forum, he led on a standardising of road opening charges across the country, and was the lead on the housing building and land use committee engaging with the Department of Local Government on the new planning guidelines for residential density.

When the Meath Co Council position became available, it was one he couldn’t ignore.

“Chief executive is the highest position you can achieve in the local authority sector,” he says.

“And as someone looking in, Meath is one of the best counties in the country, one of the best local authorities in the country. And when an opportunity like this comes up, it’s one that can’t be ignored.”

It’s an opportunity that doesn’t come up too often in the local authority sector, and you are looking at a seven and potentially, 10-year term, he adds.

“The county itself is thriving and driving forward. CEO in Meath is always a highly attractive position and I was glad of the opportunity and thankful I came through the process.”

Kehoe describes himself as “personally ambitious and a very positive person”.

“And I want that positivity and ambition to reflect through the organisation here,” he adds.

He has many ambitions for the county. Drawing on his earlier experience, he is looking forward to the development of the new National Park at Dowth, and the prospect of linking it into local towns and villages through greenways, which are not just for the tourists, but for the people living here.

He would hope that such interconnection would bring visitors to the Boyne Valley here on two to three-day packages, bringing an economic boost that will help create jobs along the greenways in cafes and such outlets. “Other counties would cry out for a Newgrange of Trim Castle,” he says.

“But we must remember that the greenways and cycle lanes are not just for tourists, but for local residents to take advantage of too.”

He wants local towns and villages to be ready to avail of national funding under various schemes, to be “shovel ready” as it is called, for outdoor infrastructure, towns and villages funds, tackling dereliction, to have a pipeline of projects and to “be ambitious” for what we want.

He believes he is coming at an apt time for economic development, as the new forum has been just established, and he will sit down with it in the new year to develop a new set of aims and objectives.

“Tourism, agri-food, tech, and indigenous industries are hugely important,” Kehoe says. “And if I get one sniff of any company wanting to make foreign direct investment in the region, I will work to get them into Meath. It will be one of my main jobs to make Meath the place to invest in.”

He says the most important resource the county has is its people.

“We have a very educated workforce, many commuting to Dublin and north Kildare. We have already a lot of data gathered as regards their skillsets and qualifications, and early in the new year we want to establish a robust database. A lot of it is anonymised in census statistics, but we will do our own surveys as well.”

He says that the people are there, and the council has the benefit of sites on the business park in Athlumney. And the planned rail line, he adds, will travel both ways.

“It won’t just go to Dublin, it will come out too. Suddenly, if it is high speed, you will have over a million people within 35 minutes of the town and county, giving them the opportunity to come and work in Meath.”

Of course, more people means more housing is needed, and Kehoe stresses that housing is the number one priority.

“We need to ensure we continue to provide adequate housing, especially social housing.

“Thankfully, the Government is supporting us in provision of social housing and we are reaching the targets in our housing delivery action plan. The challenge is three to four years down the line, to secure enough land to be ready to build on. That’s where my focus will be on over the next six months.”

The provision of adequate social infrastructure from parks and playgrounds to working with the education providers on schools is also important, as is ensuring there is enough private and executive type housing developments.

“And of course, everything has to be green-centred,” Kehoe adds. “We have to be sustainable and environmentally friendly across everything we do.”

He believes that local authorities are not being used enough by the State to push sustainability, to push the transition to becoming climate neutral.

“We could be involved in small scale projects to get people engaged. We could play a strong role in it and have that connection locally.”

Something suggests that could soon happen, if the new Meath CEO has anything to do with it.