A joint meeting of the IAE Southern & Western regions and site visit was held on 24th February 2026 in the DELL Technologies Customer Solutions Centre in Limerick.
Photo L-R: Ger Hurley, Jim Browne, Tom Leahy, Brendan Murphy, Tim McGloughlin, Jeff McCann, Peter Langford, Conor McCarthy, Padraic O’Donoghue, John T Murphy, Ed Walsh.
Jeff McCann PhD, Dell Technologies Director & Global Lead, CSC Innovation Labs, Customer Solution Centre briefed the meeting on the history and evolution of DELL Technologies and gave a site visit of the very impressive innovation centre where we also met the AI chatbot Andi, who gave a very accurate and concise explanation when asked “what is the Irish Academy of Engineering?”
Photo L-R: Tim McGloughlin, John T Murphy, Padraic O’Donoghue, Tom Leahy, Andi, Ger Hurley, Jim Browne, Brendan Murphy, Peter Langford.
Dell Technologies has been operating in Ireland for over 30 years, with approximately 4,500 team members based across Dublin, Cork and Limerick. Ireland is a strategic global hub for Sales, Services, Solutions Development, Manufacturing, Supply Chain Operations, Engineering, IT and Finance. Recent investments in Customer Solution Center Innovation labs in Cork and Limerick provide modern, state-of-the-art environments for customers to experience the art of the possible, with a strong focus on customer solutions and innovation in partnership with Dell’s other CSCs globally, including its major operations in Texas, USA, Singapore and Tokyo, Japan.
The Western Region and Southern region held a joint meeting thereafter in the impressive DELL Customer Solutions Centre.
The joint meeting and was chaired by Brendan Murphy (Southern Region chair) and Padraic O’Donoghue (Western region chair). Tom Leahy, Special Advisor, Director and Past President attended in person and Sean Finlay(President IAE), Joe Harford and Una Parsons joined by VC.
Tom Leahy and Peter Langford led tributes to the sad passing of our colleague and friend Tim Corcoran. Tim was Chair of the Infrastructure Committee and a regular attendee at our regional meetings. He was also Treasurer of the Academy.
The Chair asked the President and Tom Leahy to update the meeting based on the recent Council Meeting.
Activity included:
- Eastern Region launched at a well-attended event
- Presentation from the Infrastructure Taskforce
- Presentation to the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly – IAE view on SMR’s, etc.
Other focus areas for the remainder of the year include:
- Get new fellows elected and installed with good regional and gender balance.
- The Euro-Case Conference 2026 on “Resilience” in Belfast in November 2026. Involvement expected from Northern Assembly and possibly Irish Government.
- Publication of the Ireland – Engineering, Economy & Place Report – to be launched by Jack Chambers, Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation on 10th March 2026.
The meeting was briefed on Academy work plan 2026 plans by Special Advisor, Director and Past President Tom Leahy showing how the Academy delivers on its mission of providing thought leadership in a time of great change.
An active work programme was agreed for both the Southern and Western Regions.
Our thanks go to Conor McCarthy who arranged the site visit and meeting with VC facilitated by Conor McCarthy and special thanks to Jeff McCann PhD, Dell Technologies Director & Global Lead, CSC Innovation Labs, Customer Solution Centre.
The 2026 regional meetings and events programme is now published and thanks to all for arranging a varied and interesting events and networking programme. Please mark the dates in your regional calendars.
