Board Of Directors
Margaret Haddock (Chair)
Margaret is Deputy Chief Executive with The Orchardville Society Ltd and was previously its Employment Services Manager. She is the current Chair of the Northern Ireland Union of Support Employment and a member of the All Party Working Group on Disability. Margaret has a wide range of experience in relation to funding environments for the voluntary sector.
Ian Elliott (Vice-Chair)
Ian is the Group Chief Executive of Oaklee Homes Group, a leading housing provider with almost 5,000 social housing units in Northern Ireland and employing over 300 staff. Oaklee is responsible for the largest portfolio within Northern Ireland of joint management partners to meet supported housing needs for learning and physical disability, and other supported needs, including the first housing scheme in Northern Ireland for autistic adults.
Before joining Oaklee he was Deputy Chief Executive with BIH Housing Association during which he led the quality accreditation for both the Investor in People and Charter Mark, as well as a range of private sector initiatives and the development of tenant participation. Prior to this he held several positions with the Housing Executive including the post of Central Manpower Manager where he was responsible for delivering a comprehensive personnel and training service to the 500 staff including equality awareness training and staff competencies.
Membership of Boards include the Council of the NI Federation of Housing Associations; NI Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust; Extern NI and the cross community work of Book of Honour (NI) and Journey of Remembering (ROI).
Ian was educated at Portora Royal School; Queens University (BA Modern History) and University of Ulster (MA in Human Resource Mgt)
Tom Alexander(Treasurer)
Tom qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1984 having graduated from Lancaster University in 1980 with BA (Hons) in Accounting & Finance. Tom is also an Associate of Institute of Indirect Taxation and is past chairman of Northern Ireland VAT Practitioners Group. He has always worked in the accounting profession, specialising in taxation for the last 24 years, and is a tax partner in KPMG. Tom has through his career also accumulated considerable commercial experience.
Tom is also working with Lagan College Integrated school as part of the KPMG “adopt a school” programme.
Being married with two active children at Ballymena Academy leaves little surplus time; but what time there is filled with road cycling, mountain biking, table tennis, walking and any other sporting activity he can negotiate a pass out to play. Socialising and wine appreciation are ingredients to most weekends and as a past chairman of Ballymena Wine Society, Tom feels the need to keep his hand in.
Holidays involve travelling as far away from the Northern Ireland weather as possible.
John Carberry M.B.E.
John was nominated by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) where he has worked as Training Officer since 1991. He is also a member of the Northern Ireland Advisory Group of CACOP and the Advisory Group for Ulster Television. John has been involved in developing measures for the deaf community for over 30 years raising awareness in relation to deaf/hard of hearing people and in campaigning for the rights of deaf people and disabled people in general. He would like to secure the human rights of people with disabilities in Northern Ireland, to achieve a radically better quality of life for deaf and disabled people and to lobby for funding for BSL/ISL interpreters and deaf tutor training.
John was award the MBE in the 2009 New Years Honours List for his services to the deaf community.
Tom Coard
Tom has worked for a variety of voluntary sector organizations for the last 15 years and currently works for the Northern Ireland Committee for Refugees & Asylum Seekers (NICRAS)He previously served on the Board at Disability Action until 2007 but has continued as a member of both the Finance and Human Resources Sub-committees. He is also Chair of the Belfast CAB and was a carer’s representative on the Disability Living Allowance Advisory Board NI.
He has a keen interest in disability issues and is committed to bringing about change, challenging attitudes and discriminatory practices, and building inclusion that creates a greater understanding and accommodation.
Paul Finnegan
Paul is currently the Director of Development with Autism NI. He has previously worked with RNID within the area of employment and learning; at Extern managing a range of youth interventions for children and young people; the Northern Ireland Youth Forum managing the Participation Hub for children and young people; and the Southern Health and Social Services Board managing the Southern Childcare Partnership.
Previously he was on the Board of Governors at Lisburn Institute for 8 years; Chairman of Lisburn Community Relations Network; Chairman of the Northern Ireland Mentoring Forum; and a member of the Down Lisburn Trust Locality Partnership.
Paul is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership & Management and has 2 Masters Degrees (Organisational Management from QUB and Lifelong Learning from UUJ).
Much of his focus over the last 10 years has been around participation, in particular for people with disabilities and wishes to continue this within Disability Action by focusing on participation and the equality of services and support for those with a disability and their families and carers.
Kym Lennon
Kym is a founder and the first chair of Disability Matters North Down and Ards. This organisation is primarily concerned with awareness raising (accessible information provision and the production of age appropriate educational books).
Kym has been employed as a Head of Department in an Integrated college and she is an experienced teacher of Art and Art History to GCE A level. Kym has acted as an exam moderator for the education authority and she has marked Art history thesis’s for the Curriculum Council.
Kym is now a church representative for the Board of Governors at the primary school which her daughter attended.
Now a retired schoolteacher Kym does not intend to retire from life. Kym has won many awards for her published Artwork; which she continues to produce as a disabled artist.
Kym feels that it is very important to know what she can about disability and she has been awarded the PSNI trophy for ‘tirelessly promoting the dignity of people with disabilities’.
Kym intends to continue with the promotion of confidence in the political process. She will do this through participation in Disability Action in whatever way.
Gerry Maguire M.B.E.
Gerry works with the Western Health & Social Care Trust and is a part-time member of the Disability Appeals Tribunal. He is Chairperson of the Fermanagh Access & Mobility Group. In addition to this Gerry is also a member of the Fermanagh Local Strategic Partnership and the Rural Community Network Board of Directors.
