Governance and structure

We've made our Annual Reports and Accounts and Impact Reports available to make sure we're being as transparent as possible.

Samaritans Ireland is compliant with SORP and Financial Statements are prepared under the SORP Standard.

Samaritans Ireland is registered with the Irish Charities Regulator (RCN. 20033668) and is compliant with the Charities Governance Code.

Samaritans has 21 local branches across the island of Ireland (13 in RoI and 8 in NI) which are run independently by a network of volunteers. Support is given by a small team of staff based at Usher's Quay, Dublin and Woodstock Link, Belfast. The team is led by Niall Mulligan, Executive Director for Samaritans Ireland.

The governing body of Samaritans Ireland is the Trustee Board, which currently has 10 members. Half of trustees are Samaritans volunteers. The trustees are also Directors of the Company.

Eleanor Farrell – Chair

Eleanor is an experienced senior manager with a strong strategy, commercial and digital skill set. She has a track record of customer-focused transformation and operational excellence. Eleanor has a strong private sector background and worked for Google as the Global Head of Operations and Strategy for Customer Onboarding and also as the Head of UK and Ireland Global Customer Experience. Prior to Google, Eleanor worked for Vodafone Ireland as the Head of Customer Value Management and the Head of Commercial Strategy and Planning. Eleanor also worked internationally with McKinsey & Co. as a strategy consultant and also has a technology background. Eleanor has a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Statistics, an M.Sc. in Computing and an MBA. In 2019 Eleanor moved to the public sector and now works with Bus Éireann, Ireland's national bus company, as Chief Commercial Officer where she has responsibility for the commercial P&L, marketing, brand and corporate communications.

Eleanor also strong experience as a not-for-profit non-executive director and a real commitment to strengthening mental health outcomes across Ireland. She was Chair of MyMind for five years, an organisation providing accessible, affordable, community-based mental health face-to-face services both in physical locations and online. She was also a board member of Suicide or Survive.

She has also contributed significantly to other not for profit organisations, including Thinktech, a million euro 'tech for good' partnership between The Irish Government, Social Innovation Fund Ireland and Google.

In her role as Trustee for Ireland, Eleanor acts as a member of the Samaritans Board of Trustees and also as the Chair of the Board of Samaritans Ireland, a separate legal entity within Samaritans, and a subcommittee of the Samaritans Board of Trustees. Eleanor is also a member of the Samaritans Nominations Committee and has led several strategic projects for the Samaritans Board including the recruitment of the current Samaritans Chair and an Ireland Governance and Strategic Review. Since joining Samaritans, Eleanor has focused on developing her qualifications in the not-for-profit sector and has received a Diploma in Corporate Governance and a Certificate in Fundraising.

Graeme Danton

Graeme is Executive Director of Corporate Services with Samaritans Central Charity.

He started his career in the public sector, working on economic policy and risk management at the Bank of England. More recently, he has worked in the charity sector, in executive roles at education charities, including as COO of Teach First and Executive Chair of Now Teach.

Graeme enjoys spending time with his family in the Lake District.

Rory Fitzgerald

Rory is the Regional Director for Samaritans Ireland (Republic of Ireland) and oversees 13 Samaritan branches which have over 1,500 volunteers.

He joined the Waterford branch of Samaritans as a listening volunteer in 2010 after retiring from a 36-year career with Ulster Bank and still carries out his weekly duties on the helpline.

Rory has held several roles in his branch and in 2017 became the Regional Treasurer for Samaritans in Ireland which covered the 32 counties.

He has a particular interest in promoting schools outreach work across the South East.

Karl Flood – Secretary

Karl has been a volunteer in Samaritans’ Dublin Branch since 2003 and became company Secretary with Samaritans Ireland in 2017.

Professional, he has worked in CIE Group both in Bus Eireann and CIE Holding company since 1998 in both Financial Accounting and Internal auditing roles. Prior to this he worked in a number of other roles in different organisations in Dublin, London and Glasgow.

Karl Qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1991 and went on to complete a Masters in Executive Leadership in 2012 with Ulster University. He also holds a Diploma in Industrial Relations from National College of Ireland.

Alan Heron

Alan is the Regional Director for Samaritans Ireland (Northern Ireland) and has been a volunteer with the Belfast branch of Samaritans for over 20 years. He has held many positions with the branch ranging from Branch Publicity Officer to Trustee and co-ordinator of the branch’s play “This Was Your Life”. He was also Samaritans Regional Marketing Officer for Northern Ireland. He also volunteers with a local animal rescue service in Co Down.

Alan played amateur football for 25 years before becoming an Irish Football Association qualified referee for 16 years.

Clare Skelly

Clare joined the Board as Honorary Treasurer in 2017. A Chartered Accountant by profession, Clare has over 25 years’ finance and operational experience, largely in the not-for-profit sector. She was the Director of Global Finance Operations at Atlantic Philanthropies, up to 2013, a limited life foundation which awarded over $8bn in grants focused on supporting work in bringing about lasting change and improvement to people’s lives. Since then, Clare has been at World Rugby, where she leads large scale business change projects.

Previous experience as a volunteer Board Member includes terms with both Cheshire Homes and CareLocal. She also has been an active fundraiser for the Irish Hospice Foundation for many years.

Éimhín Ní Mhuircheartaigh

Éimhín is a volunteer with Dublin Samaritans. In her day job, Éimhín is the Deputy Director – Head of Operations for the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, where she has overall responsibility for directing and overseeing all non- investment activities of the Fund, including Investment Strategy, Technology, Operations, Communications & Finance. Éimhín also sits on a number of Boards as a Non-Executive Director.

Éimhín holds a Ph.D. in Physics & Molecular Electronics from Trinity College Dublin and a Diploma in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors.

Jane Trenaman

Jane is a fundraising & marketing leader with 20 years of experience spanning the commercial and non-profit sector. Prior to joining the non-profit sector, Jane spent a decade working in consumer insight & customer experience across the automotive, design and telecoms industries.  For the past decade she has worked both with and in charities to drive change at all levels, to create cultures of insight-led decision making and step change in supporter experience.

Her fundraising experience ranges from individual giving to corporate fundraising with several charities across mental health, international development and child protection. She specialises in supporter journeys, income generation and reporting. She currently works as a strategic non-profit advisor with Salesforce.org, working with organisations across Europe to drive digital transformation and best practice CRM strategy.

Daire O'Criodain

A Samaritans volunteer in the Ennis branch, Daire has over two decades of experience at Board level or equivalent in the not-for-profit sphere locally, regionally and nationally.