Rationalisation plan at Teagasc cuts regional advisers to 12

FARM advisory body Teagasc has further rationalised its Knowledge Transfer Directorate.

It is now down to 12 regional advisers from the original 26 managers.

The model of one manager per county has been gradually abandoned since 2005. Subsequent rationalisation has been imposed by the Government’s moratorium on public service recruitment.

The midlands will reshuffle its managers to minimise the impact of the retirement of Des Keegan, who is leaving after a long and distinguished career in Teagasc and its predecessor ACOT.

From yesterday, Con Feighery has taken over the region consisting of the Westmeath, Offaly, Cavan and Monaghan. He was previously manager of the Laois/Kildare advisory region.

Larry O’Loughlin has taken over responsibility for the advisory service in a region consisting of Laois, Kildare, Meath, Louth and Dublin. He previously worked as marketing manager for the advisory service and was the area manager in Wicklow and Limerick.

“There is no recruitment in the public service,” said a Teagasc spokesman. “Managers cannot be replaced, so the decision was made to manage from existing resources.

“Going back five or six years ago, there was one manager in every county. That went down to 18, and now down to 12. We are just trying to divide the workload as well as we can between the existing officers and advisers.”

A few years ago, when Gerry McCarthy retired in Cork East, Teagasc’s reshuffle involved Tom Egan moving from Cork West to replace him. Gerard MacMahon moved from Clare to take up the vacant West Cork role.

As a result of the Cork reshuffles, Teagasc amalgamated Galway and Clare into one region, with Brendan Heneghan as the sole manager for both.

Other counties which have been restructured into pooled regions include Kerry and Limerick, managed by Tom Shanahan; Roscommon and Longford, managed by Oliver Burke; Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal, managed by Martin Henry; Waterford and Kilkenny, managed by John Moloney; and Wexford, Wicklow and Carlow, managed by John Keating.